


lightning in a bottle

by fishlette



Series: meliglōssos [2]
Category: Bright (2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 14:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 27,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishlette/pseuds/fishlette
Summary: The girl behind the counter is pretty, Leilah will admit, for a human that is.OR: Leilah stalks Kandomere's ex.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of companion piece to [sunburned and shoeless kids](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14882214) I guess.
> 
> I love Noomi Rapace.

The girl behind the counter is pretty, Leilah will admit, for a human that is. She finds her by accident, a quick brush of shoulders in the crowded street. And how curious it was to find a human carrying _his_ scent in her hair, on her throat. The strangest stroke of luck Leilah’s had in twenty years.

She steps into the flower shop, the bell at the entrance jingling cheerfully overhead. It’s small, a cluttered labyrinth of carefully arranged plant life. Dangling vines kiss Leilah’s hair like butterfly wings and the heady floral scents send her head spinning. She doesn’t even realise she’s leaning back against the door until it opens and nearly knocks her off her feet. The boy at the door takes one look at her and bolts but Leilah’s too dizzy to care.

“Here.” There are gentle hands on her face, pushing her hair back and pressing soothingly on her temples. The next breath she takes in is sweet and warm, human. When Leilah’s vision clears she finds herself staring at the pretty girl from behind the counter. This close, all Leilah can smell is _her._

“I’m sorry, elven clients usually order online. This should help.” The pretty human presses a pretty glass vial in Leilah’s hands. “Peppermint oil.” She smiles brightly, “dab here,” tapping the space under Leilah’s nose.

She does but _her_ scent lingers.

Leilah doesn’t kill her. Too easy, she rationalizes. She’ll figure out what this human is to _him_ first. And then she’ll make it hurt.

The pretty vial of peppermint oil burns in her pocket.

 _Lily,_ Leilah says her name is, lie rolling easily off her tongue, eyes locked on the pale lily blossom in the pretty girl’s hair. She doesn’t expect her to pluck it from her little round ear and tuck it behind Leilah’s own, warm fingertips trailing the pointed shell. This human is tactile and shameless. She stands too close, touches too freely. Her scent clings to Leilah like spider threads and she wonders if hers does the same, wonders what _he_ will do if he smells herself on his human?

It becomes a game. Hands brushing, shoulders glancing, a touch for a touch. How long before _he_ blows up. One week, two, three, a month, two months. Leilah loses track of the finish line.

She can see the appeal she thinks. This human is satin where elves are stone ( _soft, soft, soft)._ Even her smile is soft. No one smiles like that around Leilah. Three months, four, five. Leilah doesn’t tell anyone where it is she wanders to during the day and she doesn’t tell the pretty flower shop girl where she comes from or where she goes. “This is an Elf Thing isn’t it?” She asks once. Leilah doesn’t know.

“You’re always so serious.” Her human says, smoothing a thumb between Leilah’s furrowed eyebrows. Her human. _Her human._ Leilah’s heart thumps treacherously.

“So I have concert tickets and no date.” _Her human_ says, bumping Leilah with her elbow. Carefully though, to avoid spearing either of them on Belgian roses.

“No date?” Leilah tries to keep her voice light and airy (it works, kind of), focuses on de-thorning the roses in front of her. _(Might as well help me out if you’re gonna haunt my shop.)_  

“Well I’m kind of asking this really pretty elf girl if she’d be interested right now.” _Her human_ smiles at her, soft, and the hollow in Leilah’s rib cage _hurts._

“What about your boyfriend?” Leilah can’t help asking, bites her tongue hard when she realises what she said.

Her pretty flower shop girl freezes. “How did you-? Never mind stupid question.” She taps Leilah’s nose. “Elf Thing huh?” Leilah’s whole face tingles.

“We broke up.” Her voice is shaky, watery. She coughs down her tears but Leilah can still smell them. “He’s too busy for all of that right now.”

Leilah grits her teeth, grip tightening on the thorn stripper. “Is that what he said? That he’s too busy for you?” Snip, snip, _snap._ How dare she shed tears over _him._

“No he just-” She pries Leilah’s fingers free and laces them with her own, blowing out a steadying breath. “I want to smile right now.” She says. “And you make me smile.”

Leilah’s face burns.

She should leave, walk out the door and never come back. _He_ has nothing to do with this human _(her human)_ anymore and Leilah will only attract unnecessary attention if she kills her now. And yet, _and yet._

The concert venue is crowded. They’re at the front of course, because _her human_ is “vertically challenged” _(she'd said, air quotes and all)_. Leilah did enjoy pushing her way through _(elven strength, she tells her pretty flower shop girl when they bowl over an orc in full band merch),_  one arm hooked around _her human’s_ waist. _Her_ back is pressed to Leilah’s front, she reaches back blindly to guide Leilah’s face to hers. “Isn’t this fun?”

 _No,_ Leilah wants to say. It’s loud, the venue stinks too strongly of human and orc, and the floor is sticky. But then she turns to whisper in _her human’s_ round ear and she smells warmth and sweetness and Leilah’s heart flutters.

“I’m going to get a drink do you want anything?” Leilah shakes her head but _her human_ tsks, patting Leilah's cheeks fondly. “Water then, gotta stay hydrated. Save our spot.” Leilah pulls her back, flushed against her chest. _Her human_ blinks up at her, dark lashes dancing. “What is it?”

 _He_ is a fool, Leilah thinks, and kisses her pretty human’s pretty lips.

She walks _her human_ to the train station after, the hollow in her rib cage still buzzing, and gives her another kiss. Leilah watches _her human_ board the train and melts back into the shadows, mind made up.

She will raise the Dark Lord _and_ have her human. A reward for her dedication, her loyalty.

Yes.

Leilah will have her Lord, her sister, and _her human._

And _the fool_ will burn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it's own thing now lmao.

_“Nothing ever good comes from dealing with elves.” Nana used to say._

..

He breaks up with her over breakfast so she’ll have work to distract her from thinking about it, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling like broken jetsam. She’s angry for weeks because he says it so matter-of-factly. Clipped,  _casual,_  over the rim of his coffee mug and a sesame bagel, like they meant nothing. Like  _she_  meant nothing. And  _nana was right, nana was right, nana was right._

Montehugh comes by with some flimsy excuse about needing a bouquet for a date but she knows  _he_  sent him so she charges him extra and doesn’t even trim the stems. And then the anger fades because he’d sent his partner to check on her and  _he’s protecting her_ and she cries and cries and cries.

She dreams about him most nights. Dreams about holding his face one more time, dreams about giving him one more kiss. He’s sad in her dreams, melancholy. She wonders if he’s sad in the real world too. There are tear tracks on her cheeks in the morning.

She tries to carry on (be brave be strong, nana would tell her), but he’s everywhere. A bottle of his shampoo in the shower caddy, a whiff of his cologne on her pillow, his spare shirt in her closet. (It still smells like him so she wears it to bed and it’s all very tragically pathetic.)

And then one day another elf spills into her shop, like dark ink on calligraphy paper.  _Lily,_  she says her name is. Except it’s not, she knows it’s not, she can see the lie in every pause and full body stutter when she calls her by not-her-name. But everyone’s entitled to their secrets so she doesn’t ask. She thinks of it as a pet name, something just for them, something between friends. It makes her smile.

Lily is quiet ( _aloof,_ nana would say,  _cold_ ). They’re almost alike, Lily and  _her elf_ , but not really ( _stop, don’t think about him_  (don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry)). Lily floats in every day like clockwork and sits herself on the second rung of the little stepladder beside the counter. Lily picks leaves off flower stems when she thinks she doesn’t notice. Lily likes to watch her.

It’s distracting. Lily’s eyes are moon-silver and sun-bright, she can feel them tracking her like a jungle cat. It’s kind of exciting. She starts to experiment (teasing, nana would say), drifting hands, fleeting touches.  _(Are you going to pounce, jungle cat?)_ And she realises, for the first time in months, she hasn’t thought about  _him_ all day. And later she thinks jinxes must be real and spiteful too because he kisses her in her dream that night and it breaks her heart all over again.

So she focuses on the other elf, the one she can see and touch. Lily is real and Lily is here and Lily makes her  ~~forget~~  smile.

Lily kisses her.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting but this isn’t it. Lily’s kiss is sharp like a knife blade. It feels like a declaration, a claim. It’s overwhelming. And when Lily pulls back there’s blood on her shark’s teeth and a smile on her face that sends shivers down her spine.

_Nothing ever good comes from dealing with elves._

She’s still shivering. From the train station to her apartment building. Still shivering in the empty stairwell and all the way up to her apartment when she spots Montehugh at her front door. He looks tired and grey and when he sees her he says, “Boss isn’t doing so good.”

For a solid 30 seconds before she can clear the white noise in her head to hear the rest of his words, she thinks panic might actually kill her.

“I left him in the car.” Montehugh shrugs with one shoulder. “Crushed an Ambien in his decaf coffee and he didn’t even notice. The Ambien or the coffee.” He shakes his head. “That should tell you how out of it he’s been.”

He’s almost awake by the time they get him into her living room. Montehugh gives her a quick salute and slips out the door. She sits herself next to the elf on her sofa, carding a hand through his hair. It’s longer now. Of course it’s longer, they haven’t seen each other in months. She doesn’t know if she’s allowed to touch him like this anymore, probably not. He shuffles closer.

“Oh Kandomere.”

His eyes open, bloodshot and glassy. She’s never seen an elf look anything like this before, especially not him.

“I’m dreaming.” He croaks.  _Croaks,_ what has he been doing to himself? She wants to ask. Instead she says, “no. Not dreaming.”

“Not dreaming.” He repeats, raising a hand to touch her face and she leans into it. His touch is a log fire in a winter cabin. Hearth and home. It warms the chill in her bones, warms the shivers she can still feel all along her spine. The shivers Lily gave her.

And suddenly she remembers, Lily and blood and shark grins, and pulls away from him.

Too late.

His face is in her neck and he’s sniffing her, arms around her like an iron band. The look in his eyes is wild when he pulls back. “You smell like blood.”

“I…”

“You smell like blood.” He says again, inhaling deeply. Like a bloodhound. His grip on her is painful now. “You smell like blood and Leilah.”

“Leilah?” She can’t think when he’s this close, nose barely an inch away from hers.

 _Leilah_.

“Leilah. Is that her name?”

He growls low in his throat, when she says it, baring his teeth. Shark teeth.

“What did she do to you?”

He’s panicking, she realises, and she’s not sure why. But his eyes are red and his face is desperate and she knows there will be bruises on her arms in the morning. So she tells him.

“She kissed me.”

..

_“Nothing ever good comes from dealing with elves.” Nana used to say._

She agrees.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating change for blood mention.

It’s happened before, waking to the smell of her blood in the air. Salt and iron and sickly sweet. She’d sliced her hand open on broken glass that time, spilling brilliant copper over the kitchen floor. Four stitches only and no scarring the doctor said, but when Kandomere looks at the angry line in her palm all he can think of is how small that shard of glass had been, how much blood had drenched her shirt sleeves.

How _human_ she is.

So he breaks her heart before he can break _her_ and forces himself to walk out the door (step, step, step). _Keep walking_ _(don’t look back),_ even when he can smell her tears and his limbs feel like lead weights in open water.

Friday nights are date nights so of course Montehugh is suspicious when he tells him he’s staying late. “All right Boss, spill.” He says holding Kandomere’s coffee hostage, high above his head. If it was anyone else Kandomere would punch a hole in his stomach or bruise him hard at least. He settles for glaring at him but Montehugh’s used to his glares. _(I see your glare and raise you one unimpressed eyebrow.)_

He tells him everything. It’s easy with Montehugh, his partner understands all the risks and fears. Just last week there had been a car bombing at the New York Headquarters. Five fatalities. Two agents, three civilians, _family._

He still calls him an idiot though.

Kandomere regroups. Rallies all his time and energy into hunting Inferni because if he doesn’t his mind will wander _(to her, to her, always back to her)._ And he thinks when they catch every last one of them, lock them behind heavy walls of steel and concrete, he can come back to her again, maybe.

He dreams about her and it’s torture and when he wakes in the morning his dark circles are darker. But this is the only way for him to see her now so he resigns himself to restless nights and _dreams and dreams and dreams._

And then he hears about the shooting three blocks away from her shop and he breaks and begs Montehugh to go, go, go _(please)._ And Montehugh (bless him) only sighs and drives down to the little flower shop first thing on a Sunday morning to check on Kandomere’s-

She’s not his anymore.

“I think she short changed me.” Montehugh says when they meet for breakfast, a spray of roses under his arm. Kandomere laughs until his chest hurts.

Their leads dry up not long after. The chief sends them (him) a memo: _ease up, rest._ It makes his teeth itch. “Calm before the storm.” He tells Montehugh.

Kandomere feels it. Static. Cold electricity climbing up his skin. He knocks a picture frame off his desk by accident and the glass bites deep into his palm. _“Four stitches.”_ The doctor tells him. _“Don’t worry, there won’t be any scarring.”_

An omen.

Montehugh buys him some fruity Starbucks thing that he drinks without tasting. “You need to take a break, Boss.” His partner says. “Let me drive, yeah?” Kandomere rests his forehead on the passenger side window and watches the street lamps blur together. His palm aches.

He wakes to the smell of her blood in the air.

This is a dream, Kandomere thinks when he hears her whisper his name. But she tells him no. No. Not a dream. And she’s sitting _right there._

And then his brain catches up to his nose, and _he can smell her blood._

There’s something else too.

Kandomere sits up in a flash, head pounding. _But why?_ She leans back but he holds her tight, the still fuzzy part of his brain marvels at how _right_ it feels to have her in his arms again (the real thing this time. _(Not a dream, not, a dream, not a dream))._ But he can’t think about that right now. Not when she smells like blood and…

Leilah.

The static on his skin shocks him all at once. She smells like blood and Leilah.

Leilah touched her.

_Leilah made her bleed._

“Leilah.” She says, her voice is dazed and faraway. “Is that her name?”

Something about the way she says it makes his stomach roil. His girl is a million miles away even though they’re both _right there._ And she’s shivering.

“What did she do to you?” He demands. She’s looking at him but not really. He wants to shake her (come back, come back, _come back to me_ ).

_What has Leilah done to his girl?_

“She kissed me.”

It takes him two beats to really hear her because he sees it then. Vivid red pinholes in her bottom lip.

Teeth marks.

“Hey.” She says, smoothing her fingers overs his cheeks, tipping his head back so she can look up at him. “Hey, I’m okay.” She’s back, she’s here, she’s _his_ again. “I’m fine.” She loops her arms around his neck. “Breathe.”

“Are _you_ okay?” She asks. He doesn’t know what to say.

Leilah kissed her.

_Leilah marked her._

He balls his hands into fists and tears his stitches open.

“Oh no!” She lets go of his neck to take his injured hand in both of hers. He’s stained the cushions, red on plush white fur. “Oh.” She blows warm breath on the cut. “You are such a terrible patient.”

The way she says it and the look on her face, endearingly frustrated and utterly domestic, calms his rabbit heart. He hadn’t realised how fast it was beating.

“I’m going to grab the first aid kit.” She moves to rise but he won’t let her. Can’t let her go again. He shakes his head and buries his face in the crook of her neck. “Get up then.” She says, swatting his thigh, light as the summer breeze.

They walk to the bathroom with him draped around her like wisteria vines. She makes him sit on the edge of the bath tub and settles herself in his lap.

“What did you _do?”_ She asks face scrunched in concentration as she dabs at the cut with sterile cotton.

“I dropped a picture frame.” He can’t summon the energy to be anything other than deadpan and it makes her giggle. And suddenly everything’s all right because they’re here, _together._

And later, after she wraps his hand in gauze and burrows into his side in her sleep, he runs a finger over the pinholes in her bottom lip.

And he swears to himself this time, Leilah will be getting what’s coming to her.


	4. Chapter 4

Her human is late.

She’s been late before, five minutes, ten, and then she’ll blow around the corner with two cups of steaming coffee and a smile and her hair in the wind. _“Maybe I should add you to the payroll and give you a key.”_ She had said when Leilah appeared behind her, like wood smoke curling around a burning flame, to take the coffee from her so she could unlock the door.

And one day she asks, in a serious tone, when she’s locking up early so she can hurry off to some doctor’s appointment _(“Don’t worry about it Lily Flower, it’s just a routine checkup.”)_ “You’ll come check on me right? If I ever don’t show up?” She looks up at Leilah with those wide doe eyes, dark lashes casting shadows across her cheeks. She’s holding her breath. Her human is watching her, waiting for something, Leilah thinks. Waiting for what? Leilah wonders. _You really are such a strange little thing._

“Of course.” Leilah said, because _of course_ she would come looking for _her human_. Leilah looks after her own.

She lets out the breath she’s been holding with an audible _whoosh_ and hooks her arm through Leilah’s own. _“You are too cute.”_ She says as she pulls Leilah with her down the street. The smile her human gives her is bright and soft, like morning light beaming through lace curtains. Daisies, Leilah thinks. Her human reminds her of daisies.

Leilah lets her human scrawl her address across the back of her hand with a silver sharpie even though the ink smells vile. _(“Silver, like your eyes. Isn’t it pretty?”)_

It stains her hand and she memorizes the numbers.

It’s an older building, her human’s apartment complex, with ivy climbing up its walls. How very like her, Leilah thinks, and almost smiles until she remembers why she’s here.

An hour late.

Did she scare her? Leilah wonders, absentmindedly running her tongue along her pointed teeth. No, she decides. Her human is brave, her human glares her down and tells her to _“be sweet”_ when orc clients stumble into their little shop. Her human bit her back.

Leilah presses a thumb into the center of her bottom lip. There’s no mark, her human’s teeth are too blunt. Next time, Leilah thinks, she’ll ask her to bite harder.

She circles the building looking for a window, a balcony maybe, then decides to use the front door after all. Her human wouldn’t appreciate Leilah breaking into her home. This tenderness is new, Leilah doesn’t recall ever being so thoughtful _(sweet, her human would say),_ not even with her sister.

“I’m sorry, but I’m already late.”

It’s her. Leilah could pick out her human’s voice anywhere. There must be someone with her then. A neighbour perhaps? Leilah slows her pace.

“Yes you are. Please mi amor, what difference will it make?”

Leilah freezes, every muscle in her body suddenly pulled taut like violin strings. _No, no, no, no, no._ This is wrong. _He’s_ here. Why is he here?

_What is he doing here?_

“You’re whining.” Her human sighs. There’s exasperation in her voice and fondness too. Fondness that makes Leilah bite her tongue hard. The taste of old pennies floods her mouth.

“I really need to go.” Her human says. _Her human._ Hers, hers, hers. Not his.

“Let me drive you at least.” He says, voice low and throaty. He must be standing close to her. _How dare he._

“Monty took the car remember?” Her voice is low too, a soothing lilt. She must be trying to placate him, Leilah thinks. She presses her back hard against the wall. This is as close as she can get without breaking cover and oh how badly she wants to round the corner, wand in hand. Is he blocking her way? Does he have his hands on her?

“Mi amor.” _How dare he call **her** human that._

“Oh! You’re going to tear your hand open again!”

“Come with me then. Clearly I need to be supervised.”

 _Her human_ huffs. “Lily’s gonna think I’m avoiding her.” The silence that follows is cement heavy and molasses thick. _Tell him,_ Leilah urges in her mind, suddenly gleeful. _Tell him, little Daisy Blossom, rip out his heart._

“Lily.” He says, grinding down on the syllables like a wood chipper. Leilah wants to cackle.

“Lily, Leilah, whatever she wants her name to be. Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? My Lily’s really very sweet.”

 _My Lily, my Lily, my Lily._ Leilah preens. He knows! He knows and it must be killing him. _Oh little Daisy Blossom, how happy you have made me._

“What are you doing?” Her human squeaks. Leilah snaps back to attention. _What is he doing?_

“We’re going back inside. You’re going to pack a bag.”

“What? Why?”

He’s taking her away, Leilah realises. He’s trying to keep _her human_ from her. Leilah instinctively reaches inside her coat but her wand isn’t there. She’d stopped carrying it on her day trips to her human’s little shop.

“Kandomere!”

Enough.

Leilah doesn’t need her wand for this.

She clicks her heels loudly on the linoleum floor and steps into the hall. The scene before her makes Leilah clench her teeth. He’s pulled her close, his paw on her little human’s arm, purple shadows under his fingertips.

He’s bruised her.

“Lily!” Her human cries, she tries to move around Kandomere but he hauls her back. Leilah's vision tints with red. _Oh how she’ll make him pay for that._ He steps between them like a shield, blocking her human from view. Does he think he’s protecting her? Leilah wonders. How pathetic.

He’s injured, she observes, there’s a bandage on his hand. Good. It won’t be enough to slow him down but Leilah knows how to use these things to her advantage. All she needs to do is get her human away from him. _Work with me little Daisy Blossom._

“You.” He spits the word like its venom. Acid on his tongue.

Leilah grins.

“Me.”


	5. Chapter 5

He must be mistaken, she decides when she’s had some time to think. It had taken the better part of an hour to convince him she wouldn’t disappear if he let her go long enough for her to take a shower. Whatever’s spooked him must be really truly terrible and Lily just _wasn’t._ She wipes down the mirror and stares at her reflection, tracing her lip with her pinky. _Shark’s teeth,_ both of them, he used to bite her too.

So Lily was a little possessive, but he was too. _Elf Thing,_ she thinks. And anyway, they’d been at a concert, god knows how many people she’d bumped into, she could have picked up that scent from anyone. He’s mistaken, she nods to herself. He’d been overworking himself and Monty had _drugged him._ There’s a frantic rapping on the door and she hurries to open it before he beats it down. They’ll have to talk about it in the morning but right now she would soothe whatever demons haunted him.

“Hi.” She says, to the ex-boyfriend standing in her bathroom door. Kandomere had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves. He looks better now, still a little worse for wear, but calm.

“Hello.” His smile is tired but genuine and it breaks her heart to think this had all been for her. _“I don’t know if he said it much, doesn’t really seem like his style, but he loves you ya know?”_ Montehugh had said to her when he carried an unconscious Kandomere up to her apartment. She does know, and she loves him too, so very much, and that’s why this is so, so difficult. _Why did it have to be so difficult?_

“You’re wearing my shirt.” He says, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides.

“Yeah.” She says, pulling at the too long sleeves. It’d become a habit to wear it, it made her feel safer when she did. She can feel tears building in the back of her eyes and she wills them to stop, _not now, not now, not now, please._ And then his arms are around her and she’s crying into his chest.

“I missed you _so much.”_ She sobs.

“I missed you too, mi amor.” He presses a kiss into her hair.

“I know, I know.” She soaks his shirt so he goes to bed bare chested. And they don’t really solve much of anything but her heart feels lighter and she’s his _amor_ again.

When she wakes in the morning she finds herself pinned to him by a heavy arm. Kandomere’s eyes are open and he’s staring at her. “Did I wake you?” He asks in a whisper, the little groove forming between his eyebrows as they pull together. She shakes her head and reaches up to smooth it away, trailing her fingers down his jaw. How long had it been since she last woke up to him?

She kisses him.

She kisses him and he kisses her back and everything in the world is wonderful again. He nips at her neck with his shark’s teeth and she gasps. “No hickeys!” She swats at his arm. He grins, running his nose up her neck, and whispers in her ear. “Too late.”

They stay like that, tangled together, until his phone beeps from the other side of the room and that’s when she thinks to look at the clock on the bedside table.

“Oh my god I’m late!”

He laughs at her as she scrambles up to get dressed. _Oh the audacity._ She throws his jacket at his head but he catches it. _Damn elven reflexes._ “You’re late too you know.”

He shrugs lazily. “Ulysses will have figured something out. We have a system.” Because _of course_ they do.

Kandomere’s made breakfast by the time she’s ready to go. “I’ll just grab something on the way.” She tells him. But he’s having none of that so breakfast it is, seated in his lap while he scrolled through his messages. He manages to drag that out too, bumping her with his nose and looking at her expectantly until she spears a strawberry to feed him with.

“Brat.” She says. He flicks her ear.

And finally, _finally,_ they’re out the door.

“We should go to the pier.” He says casually, like he’s not trying to convince her to play hooky. _(“You’re self-employed querida, you’re allowed to.”)_

“I’m sorry, but I’m already late.” But she lets him pull her back anyway. They used to do this dance every morning but with her seducing him instead. The role reversal makes her want to laugh.

“Lily’s gonna think I’m avoiding her.”

His face drops and she suddenly feels chilled. _The shivers are back._

“Lily.” He snarls. They’d forgotten about it all morning, the terrible _thing_ that turned him feral, but now it’s looming over them like smog and she can feel it choking her. But whatever he thinks, she knows it can’t be true. Lily is quiet and strange and sweet. And she’s not here to defend herself.

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

He looks at her like she just stabbed him. She wants to kiss that look away, reaches for him, but he grabs her first, dragging her down the hall.

“What are you doing?” He’s crushing her arm.

“You’re going to pack a bag.”

“What? Why?” He doesn’t answer her. “Kandomere!”

And then, _click, click, click,_ like gun shots.

Lily’s there.

Kandomere pushes her behind him. His shoulders are tense like a coiled spring. _What is happening?_

“You.” He says in the most awful voice she’s ever heard him use. The hairs on the back of her neck are prickling. She’s so, so _cold._

She peeks around him to see Lily grinning like a lunatic. _What on earth?_ This isn’t her Lily.  _Lily is quiet and strange and sweet._ Her heart batters hard against her rib cage.

_This isn’t Lily._

The elf in the hall locks eyes with her.

 _This isn’t Lily._ It must be…

“Me.” The elf says.

Leilah.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence.

He should have made her pack last night, should have used his panicked adrenaline to spirit her away and hunt _The Monster_ down but he was so tired and she’d wrapped her arms around his waist and said, _“Come to bed.”_ So he did. Kandomere’s played this scene over in his head every single restless night for months, coming back to her and begging for forgiveness. He’d been prepared to grovel except she hadn’t needed any of that, folding neatly into him and telling him so sweetly, _“I missed you.”_ And that was that.

She’d draped herself over him in her sleep, mumbling about how much she missed him. How much she loved him. It was enough to make him forget the urgent tugging at the back of his skull.

And then she says “ _My Lily”_ with a softness he’d always thought was reserved for him and the static on his skin _stings._

This is the storm.

This is what he’d been afraid of, infecting her with the Inferni’s poison. Leilah’s poison. Rage claws at his throat like a hungry lion. So this was what Leilah had been doing all those quiet weeks while he ran himself ragged chasing ghosts. How tightly has she twisted herself around his girl to make her speak so fondly? _How dare she._

He hears her before he sees her, heels clipping the floor in a death rattle. She must be wand less, he realises, he wouldn’t still be standing if she wasn’t. Good. They’re on even ground then. Kandomere’s bandaged palm itches. Twenty years and she hasn’t changed at all. He can smell the brutality rolling off of her in waves. _Bruja._

Leilah doesn’t even deign to acknowledge him, staring straight through him to the little human pressed against his back. “Come out Daisy Blossom.” She croons. “Come to me.” Her voice is soft too, something he’d not thought possible, and it throws him off. The Leilah he knows is ruthless and cruel. The Leilah he knows nearly snapped his neck with her bare hands. A trick, he thinks, she’s trying to pull on his girl’s heartstrings. He growls low in his throat. _Demon._

“Kandomere,” whispered from behind him. She’s afraid, he can feel her shaking. “I don’t know what’s going on but maybe if I just talk to her-“

“No!” Kandomere shouts. She doesn’t understand. What lies has the witch been filling her head with?

Leilah strikes then, charging at him head first with no plan or pattern. She’s smaller than him and quicker too. Kandomere only barely dodges the blow aimed for his head.

“Let her go.” Leilah hisses, stalking forward as he moves back, careful to keep his fragile human behind him. “Give her back!”

They’re running out of hallway, he’ll have to fight back soon. The human behind him has a death grip on the back of Kandomere’s jacket. He reaches back and grabs her hand, keeping his eyes on the wild woman in front of him. “Listen to me querida, find your keys. Run back to the apartment, lock the door, and call Ulysses. Do you understand?”

He doesn’t wait for her to respond before pushing her into the nook where the hall meets the emergency fire stairs, lunging to the side to dodge Leilah’s next blow. He expects her to follow but she doesn’t. Leilah pours herself into the stairwell, caging his girl in.

No. His heart stops. No, please.

Leilah takes his girl’s face in her hands. “Are you well little daisy?”

“No.” Her voice is shaky. Kandomere wants to rush to her but the sight of her neck under Leilah’s claws stalls him. One wrong move and _snap._ “I’m afraid.”

“Has he hurt you?” Leilah asks, she sounds concerned. Another trick. “I’ll gut him.”

“No, no! I’m afraid of you!”

Leilah steps back like she’s just been slapped and Kandomere takes the opening, slamming the elf witch into the wall with his elbow in her throat. She recovers quickly, twisting his arm and sinking her nails into his bandaged hand. They’re both bleeding now.

“You did this!” She screeches. “You did this! What did you tell her?”

She swipes at him but he uses the momentum against her, hurling her hard on to the ground. She takes him with her, bashing his temple with her fist. Kandomere’s vision whites out.

The fire alarm goes off with an ear piercing shriek, doors further down the hall open and the other tenants begin to file out. Leilah gives him one last jab and escapes into the crowd.

“Please be okay, please be okay.” His girl’s voice cuts through the buzzing in his skull. “Hey, look at me.” She says. She’s kneeling in front of him but he can barely make out her form. The room is spinning. “I think you have a concussion, I need you to stay awake. Please, for me?”

“Anything for you mi amor.” He slurs, tilting his head trying to clear his vision.

“Please don’t flirt with me while you’re bleeding out of your face.”

Montehugh gets them to the hospital in less than fifteen minutes even though they’re on the other side of the city. She doesn’t let go of him the entire drive, holding him close even when the ER doctor comes to stitch him up. Kandomere is gratified. Leilah screamed like she’d lost even though she had the upper hand because she had. She’d lost whatever game she’d been playing and that was enough for him. For now.

“Doc says you gotta stay overnight for observation.” Montehugh says when he strolls back into the private room. “And visiting hours are over. Let’s go Plant Mom.”

“I’ll come back first thing tomorrow okay?” His girl presses a gentle kiss to the bandaged gash on his temple. “Behave.”

They leave him to sleep but he can’t. This isn’t the end and Kandomere knows it. Leilah must be seething. She’ll be the one hunting him now. Good, he thinks. They’ve dragged this out twenty years too long.

Leilah will be back. And they’ll finally end this once and for all.


	7. Chapter 7

“I don’t like violence.” Her human tells her once, when Leilah pulled her away from a scuffle on the train station platform. She’d tucked herself under Leilah’s arm, drawing herself in as small as she could manage, shivering like dandelion puffs being blown off their stem. Leilah remembers that now, remembers how _afraid_ her human had been. She wipes her bloodied nose across the back of her skinned knuckles. It doesn’t help, smearing crimson streaks all down her face. Her human didn’t like violence, or blood and she’d been afraid.

And still her brave little daisy had gathered her wits to pull on the fire alarm. She’d given Leilah her chance to escape. She curses under her breath. She should have taken her human with her, but she hadn’t been thinking straight, blinded by the thought that _he_ turned her Daisy Blossom against her. He hadn’t managed that though, she knows, because her human is brave and clever and she’d helped Leilah run.

 _“I’m afraid of you!”_ Echoes in her head loud and piercing like a gunshot. _This is all his fault._ She should have killed him when she had the chance. Should have killed him twenty years ago instead of keeping him to bat at like a chew toy. They’ll have her human locked away in some steel room now, _for her protection,_ they’ll say. Lies. _Wait for me,_ Leilah thinks, _wait for me little daisy. I will come back for you._

She keeps to back alleys, darting from shadow to shadow. _(Jungle cat, her human calls her)_. He’ll have his army scouring the streets for her by now. The wretch, she thinks. Leilah’s blood is dried by the time she reaches home, but her knuckles ache still.

“You’re hurt!” Tikka darts out of the compound like a nervous kitten. Her sister must have been watching for her. “What happened?” She asks, cradling Leilah’s ruined hands in her own.

“Inside.” Leilah grinds through clenched and bloodied teeth. They hurry through the empty corridors, Leilah striding purposefully quick with her sister trailing after her.

“What happened?” Tikka asks again when they’re locked safely inside Leilah’s rooms.

“MTF.” Leilah says calmly, she doesn’t want to spook Tikka, her sister’s still so young.

“You fought them by yourself?!”

Tikka doesn’t like violence either, Leilah thinks, or blood. She’ll have to protect them both then, when the Dark Lord rises. How strange it is for a soldier like her to be surrounded by such gentle things. Leilah squeezes Tikka’s hand reassuringly even though it pulls at her ravaged skin.

“Peace, little sister. I still live.”

“But you’re hurt!”

Her concern is touching and it almost makes Leilah smile. Tikka has been the only softness in her life for so long. Leilah lets her sister fuss over her wounds, mind drifting back to the terrified look on her human’s face from that awful morning. And _my Lily, my Lily, my Lily._ Of course her human hadn’t been afraid of her. _(“My Lily’s really very sweet.”)_ Her human is soft and gentle, like morning light, of course she would be afraid of violence, of blood. Not her. Not _her Lily._

She should have killed him. _Bastard._

But what’s done is done, she’ll just have to wait now for another chance. His death was never a priority before. It had been fun to taunt him, but she was done with that now. Twenty years is enough. Now, she thinks, his death will be such an excellent gift to herself. And her human too, Leilah decides. The pathetic worm had broken her daisy’s heart and now he thinks he can waltz back in and steal her human away from her? _How can she stand him?_ Leilah wonders, remembering the _fondness_ in her voice, how softly she’d spoken to him. Her human really is too gentle. For him _and_ herself. But Leilah can’t let go now, because this human is _hers._ And she’ll tear him to shreds with just her nails for making Leilah’s human so sweet on him.

 _I’ll gut you,_ Leilah thinks, _and I’ll make it hurt._ But first she’ll have to rescue her little Daisy Blossom and bring her back.

“There.” Tikka ties off the bandage into a neat little bow. “Please be more careful.” She says as she collects the scattered first aid supplies from the bedside table. Tikka will like her human, Leilah thinks. They’re both soft and _pure_ and Tikka does so love pretty things. Her human will like Tikka too, Leilah knows she will, she knows _her human._ She lets herself imagine for a minute what it will be like, having her sister and her human both and it is perfection. _This is what the fates have intended,_ Leilah thinks, and damn _him_ for trying to take that from her. _Damn him for making her bleed._

Leilah waits until her sister leaves the room to retrieve her wand. It sings in her grip, a low murmur, a song only she can hear. The wand glows like a beacon in her hand. _Guide me,_ she prays, _tell me what I must do now._ The wand pulses like a beating heart sending vibrations up and down her arm. _Tell me._

The sky over the city grows dark with thunder clouds and the air crackles with electricity. She can taste the humidity, caustic on her tongue. It’s cold like ice but burning hot. Can the others feel it? Can Tikka? _No,_ a growling in her head tells her, _this is for you alone._

Leilah can feel it, _power_ , rising from the very earth. It comes to her in a whirlwind, rushing through the glowing wand and then her limbs, her heart. It burns. Outside thunder claps like a drum roll and the sky lights up all at once, blazing.

 _Thank you my Lord,_ Leilah says inside her head and hears a rumbling, _you’re welcome, child,_ in return. She’s charged with energy now, like a cannon waiting to fire. Leilah laughs.

_Wait for me Daisy Blossom. I’m on my way._


	8. Chapter 8

She can still feel Lily’s hands on her face, cool and smooth like pale marble. _Leilah,_ she corrects herself, cold fire licking up her spine when she whispers it in her head. She hasn’t slept a wink, mind too full of terror and blood and heartbreak. Running through their story again and again and again, beginning, middle, end, on loop. _Were we ever really friends?_

They must have been, she decides, when she thinks of Lily _(Leilah)_ and her smile (the first one, flushed and pretty under the curling lotus vines in her shop, not the others _(the shark’s grins)_ ). What could she gain anyway from charming a human girl who lived and breathed petals and pollen and leaves? But then she thinks of Leilah _(Lily)_ and shark’s teeth and cold hands that hurt her elf. _Was that all I ever was?_ She wonders. _A chess piece, a weapon to use to against him, to hurt him?_ She shakes her head, the back of her skull humming with a dull ache.

They’re waiting out in the hall, her and Montehugh, for the doctor to finish examining _her elf_ (not-her-elf? She doesn’t know anymore.) It’s hard to look at him, Montehugh, after he sat her down and took her statement. His face when she told him everything _(beginning, middle, end)_ was blank but she couldn’t help but feel judgement, from him, from herself. _“Don’t worry about it yeah? You didn’t do anything wrong.”_ He’d said, but _she did, she did, she did._ She’d befriended a monster. (Not-a-monster? Can’t-be-a-monster? Her head _(heart)_ hurts.) And it was _all her fault_ that his partner was in the hospital.

The doctor exits, giving them a tight smile and a quick salute before hurrying off to his next patient. He must feel the tension too, she thinks.

“Go on then,” Montehugh says, nodding at the door. “It’s not me he wants to see.”

She takes a deep breath to steel herself before rising to her feet and Montehugh chuckles. “You heard the doc, he’s fine. Chill a little yeah?” She nods, but that’s not what she’s worried about. He’s fine now yes _(Elf Thing),_ but he won’t be after he hears what she has to say.

“I’m going to the canteen,” Montehugh says. “Give you two a little space.” He shuffles off and she’s standing by the door alone. One beat, two beats-

“Querida?”

He’s heard them hasn’t he? _Elf Thing._

She eases her way inside inch by inch, opening the door as little as possible, making as little noise as she can. _Defense mechanism,_ he told her once, when she wondered aloud why she did these things without thinking. She curses herself in her head, he must know something’s up now.

“What’s wrong querida?” He’s in front of her in two quick strides, taking her face in his hands. They’re cool and smooth. _Marble._ She flinches. “Mi amor?”

“We have to stop!” She says in a rush, pushing the words out all at once before they can strangle her alive. “We have to stop, or she’ll come back and she’ll hurt you and it’s all my fault!” The tears come then and she hates herself for it because he always, _always_ has to fix whatever it is that makes her cry, he can’t help himself. She won’t let him do that this time. “We have to stop.” She says again, sobbing so hard she can barely breathe.

His arms come around her and she tries and fails to fight her way out of them. He can’t, _he can’t,_ but he’s trying to fix it anyway, and it makes her cry harder.

“No.” He says. The end. Final. “I’m not letting you go again. I’m never letting you go again do you hear me?”

She shakes her head, pushing hard against his chest and he takes both her wrists in one hand.

“We’re not doing this again.” He says. “Look at me.”

She does. His eyes are warm, determined. He’s looking at her like she’s the most precious thing on earth and it warms her heart and breaks it too. _Why do you have to do this to me?_

“Whatever _she’s_ planning wouldn’t hurt me any more than if you rip my heart to pieces right now.” He says and lets go of her hands, but she doesn’t try to pull away anymore. Can’t pull away anymore. She buries her face in his chest and cries and cries and cries.

He always knows how tug on her heartstrings.  _Elf Thing,_  she thinks. 

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to go home.” He says, stroking her hair with his good hand. The other one’s bandaged up again, stitches and all.

“Home?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m locking you up in an ivory tower. Let’s see you try to leave me now.” He growls into her ear. It tickles, and she laughs for the first time in what feels like years even though it’s only been a day and a half. And just like that he’s fixed it all. _(Except he hasn’t but she hopes the powers that be will let them both have this for now at least.)_

They drop by her apartment to pick up her things, a change of clothes, toiletries, his shirt that she wears to bed.

“I have more at home you know.” He says, watching her fold it and carefully stow it in her bag.

“I know,” she says. “But this one’s mine now.”

“Oh really?” He raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

“Mm hmm. It smells like me so it’s mine now.”

“Your logic is infallible querida, truly.” He stalks up behind her like a panther, she can see him from her peripheral vision.

“Why’s that?” She asks, poised to jump away from him but he’s quicker. One beat, two beats, and she’s in his arms again, his face in her neck. It tickles.

“Because you smell like me.” He says against her throat. “So what say you little human?”

“Guess I’m yours then.” She says with a grin.

“Yes, you are.”


	9. Chapter 9

She doesn’t fight him when he tells her not to go into the shop and of all the things that worry him this is the one that makes Kandomere sweat. Because his girl is surprisingly bullheaded and now she’s walking on eggshells around him.

“Why not?” She’d asked when he interrupted her morning routine of hurricane-ing around the room, getting up and dressed for work. He'd dragged her back to bed by the tails of her  _(his)_ shirt, pinning her to the mattress with only his kisses.

“You know why.” He’d said, as gentle as he could because he’d read the statement she'd given Montehugh and because he knows that his girl is a bleeding heart through and through and Leilah had taken full advantage of that.

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” She surrenders, but her eyes are shadowed and Kandomere can feel his heart drop into his stomach.

 _Compassion makes the world go round,_ she told him once. _(“Nana said so.”)_ And she is by far the most compassionate soul he’s ever met. But Kandomere wishes she had less of it now, less to spare for Leilah. _My Lily,_ she’d said with an affection he doesn’t think she even realises herself. And he knows she chose him, knows she _loves_ him, but the thought that she’d ever considered _Leilah_ her friend (and maybe more if Montehugh hadn’t forced him to fix his mistake), sets his teeth on edge.

It doesn’t help that he can still see Leilah’s marks on her lip, dark and deep. A warning, he had thought when he first saw them, a threat. A claim, he had realised when Leilah threw caution to the wind and fought him, wandless, for the pretty flower shop girl with the wide doe eyes.

So he stakes his own claim, red and purple in the hollow of her throat, like summer roses.

“I know what you’re doing.” She gasps when Kandomere buries his teeth in her neck. _Oh mi amor you really don’t._

He wants Leilah to see it, but he also doesn’t want Leilah to ever lay her eyes on his girl again. This human is _his_ and he won’t let anyone else have her. Especially not The Witch.

They get straight to work, he and Montehugh, mapping the city with eyewitness sightings of _“some elf chick that was bleeding real bad.”_ Kandomere wants to laugh when the orc boy tells him. He’d done better this time then.

“So the Inferni hideout must be somewhere here.” He gestures to the grid on the whiteboard. They have the rough coordinates pinned down. Kandomere can almost taste his victory.

“We still need more intel though.” His partner says. “Can’t just charge in blind, Boss.”

 _Don’t get ahead of yourself,_ is what Kandomere knows he means, but he can’t help it. Twenty years of feeling like second best and after so recently almost becoming just that has made him reckless. He thinks of the pretty human girl waiting for him in his apartment, soft and sweet, and how Leilah had her to herself for months and months.  He clenches his fists, pulling at the stitches in his bandaged palm. It stings.

He wonders though what his girl will say once he has The Witch in chains. Will she want to see her? Will she cry for Leilah like she cries for him? _She doesn’t deserve your tears querida._ (He doesn’t really either but he’s too selfish not to hoard them for himself.) It haunts him, not knowing how deep her compassion for The Demon runs. _(“My Lily’s really very sweet.”)_

Kandomere comes home with renewed purpose in his veins, and a pint of his girl’s favourite ice cream. There’s a note taped to the mirror in the front hall.

 _Phone died so I couldn't text you. Have to step out for a bit to fix a client's online order. Be back_ _soon!_ Followed by her cheerful lipstick print, sunny peach today. He smiles. Online order, so his girl will be skipping around Elf Town then. An image of her, frilly sundress and all, weaving through the crowded streets crosses his mind.  _Elves are just people,_ she'd tsked at him when he'd taken her out on the town for the first time, keeping her close and away from the other elves. And then she'd kissed him in full view of the other pedestrians.  _Shameless little thing._

Kandomere hides the ice cream in the back of the freezer, a surprise for his pretty flower shop girl, and waits. He falls asleep on the sofa cushions that smell like her and wakes to the Midas touch of the setting sun. And an empty apartment.

He blinks the last of the sandman’s dust out of his eyes, scanning the empty room, casting his senses far and wide. Nothing. She should have been back by now. How long did it take to exchange a bouquet of flowers? And then his heart seizes. _Was this why she’d been so compliant for these past couple of days?_ To lull him into a false sense of security and leave him behind? He should have known, an arctic chill creeps up his spine even though the sun's still warm on his face. His stubborn girl would have never folded so easily. Kandomere drops his head into his hands, a million thoughts zooming through his brain, like a high speed car chase down a dead end street.

Where had she gone? How long ago did she leave? Can he still catch her? And the worst one yet, had she chosen Leilah after all?

 _I missed you so much,_ she’d said, _I love you._ But did she still? How could she really after what he did to her? When he’d abandoned her to her lonesome for no good reason for months. And Leilah had been there to pick up the pieces.

Second best he is then. As always.  _I_ _diot._

The key turning in the lock sounds like an avalanche. Kandomere jumps to his feet, jostling the glass coffee table as he hurries to the door.

“You are not going to believe the day I had!” She’s there, flushed and flustered, like a windswept hummingbird. His girl’s voice is a balm to his aching spirit. Kandomere gathers her to his chest, cutting off her words.

“Is everything okay?” She asks, muffled against his shirt.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, everything’s fine.” But he holds her tighter because it seems every time he lets her out of his sight she slips away again. He settles into her hair, nuzzling his nose into soft silk strands. _(It smells like me so it’s mine now.)_ She smells like flowers and sunlight and him. Kandomere breathes deep.

"You're so weird." She says, but she lets him drown her in his scent, looping her arms around his neck, rising to her tip toes to press kisses like butterfly wings along his jaw. He laughs, reveling in her attention.

"Kiss me," he demands.

"Brat." She says and then she does. She tastes like honey, he drinks her down greedily.

 _Let Leilah have her compassion then,_ Kandomere thinks, for the same compassion has gifted him the precious creature in his arms.  _But her love is mine._


	10. Chapter 10

The air in the compound is stifling, heavy with heat and stagnant water. They’ve been locked in for days by her own executive order and Leilah is restless. It had to be done, the rats from the MTF have been sniffing too close to their territory and it only added to the fury simmering in her blood. She could only choose one between her coven and her human and that she’d been forced to set her human aside even for a handful of days makes her want to snap every single worthless MTF rat neck with her bare hands.

What has he been telling _her_ all this time? She wonders. _How has The Wretch been trying to turn her daisy against her?_ Leilah seethes. Her knuckles haven’t been healing well despite the magic humming just beneath her skin. _My daisy could fix it,_ she thinks, remembering her human’s soft touch, carefully picking cactus thorns out of her finger. _Is this why you wear gloves all the time?_ Her human had teased. _Clumsy,_ she’d called her and then soothed the sting with her warm hands and a mischievous wink. _Shameless flirt,_ Leilah thinks.

It’s sunny outside, she can see from the little window in her room. Her human adored sunny days. _We should really take the day off and go to the beach,_ her human said to her once on a particularly bright hot day, fanning them both with a loose palm leaf. _Girl’s day,_ she’d beamed at Leilah, blunt little teeth shining. Where was she now? Leilah wondered. _He better not have locked her somewhere dark._ Her daisy hated the dark.

Twelve days she counts, on the calendar Tikka insisted on hanging by her bed. Twelve days since she’d last laid eyes on her human. Leilah rips the calendar from the wall, flinging it clear across the room. The compound is suffocating, walls pressing in too close, she can’t _breathe_. She has to leave.

The halls are empty and quiet save for low murmurs behind all the heavy chamber doors. Leilah makes her way out without passing a single person. _They’re avoiding me then,_ she thinks, _wise choice._ Even Tikka has been hiding in her rooms, coming out only for a bite of food when she had to. Leilah curses in her head. _Soon little sister, we will be walking in broad daylight._

She blends into the pedestrians like a drop of rain in a waterfall, slipping through the unusually cop heavy streets. The human shopping district is crowded as always, filled with all manner of creatures. She’d carried her human through it on her back once, after she rolled her ankle in her ridiculous platform shoes. _You’re the best,_ her little daisy had said, pressing her face into Leilah’s hair. She traces those steps to her human’s shop, tucked away from the crowds, nestled on the corner of the busy Main Street. Leilah expects it to be empty but it’s not.

The lights in the back room are on, peeking out under the swinging wooden doors. Her human steps out from behind them, arms full with a glass terrarium. Leilah sucks in a harsh breath when she sees her. She’s wearing her hair down, long curls sweeping behind her shoulders. _She’s not working today then,_ Leilah thinks. Her human never works with her hair down. The magic under her skin buzzes with a nervous energy. _Twelve days._ Leilah can hear her heartbeats loud in her ears. _Thump, thump, thump._ Like thunder.

How could one little human have this effect on her?

Leilah examines the quiet stretch of sidewalk in front of her human’s shop. No cameras, no cops. Good. She glides into the flower shop.

“I’m sorry we’re not-“ Her human gasps when she sees her, a little hitch of breath that sends magic spiralling through Leilah like pinballs. _She’s afraid, she’s afraid, she’s-_

Her human is front of her. “Oh your hands!” Leilah looks down at her ungloved fists, split open again when she’d clenched them hard, nails biting into her palm.

“What is it with elves and ripping your hands open?” Her human lifts her hands gingerly in her small soft ones, dabbing at her knuckles lightly with a tissue. _Oh Daisy Blossom_. Warmth spreads through Leilah’s chest, slow, like honey.

“Come on.” She tugs Leilah into the back room careful not to pull too hard, pushing down on her shoulders to make her sit on the stool beside the sink. “You guys really suck you know that?” Her human’s back is turned, fiddling with the cabinet over the sink. Leilah can smell salt water in the air. Tears.

“Look at me little daisy.” Leilah commands, but her voice is light. “Turn around.”

“No.” _Spoiled little thing._

“Fine.” She slides in front of her human instead, wondering when it was that she’d begun indulging her so. Leilah takes her human’s face in her hands, brushing her tears away with her thumbs. “Look at me.” She says again.

She does, eyes red-rimmed and miserable. It makes Leilah’s heart _hurt._

“Please promise me you won’t fight again!” Her human cries. “Please!” She throws her arms around Leilah’s shoulders, fitting herself into her embrace like a puzzle piece. _Oh,_ Leilah thinks, heart stuttering. _Oh how lovely._

“I don’t want to see you fight again.” Her human hiccups against her neck. Leilah wants to give her that promise but she can’t. She is first and foremost a soldier for her Lord, fighting is her lifeblood.

“Please,” her human says, voice small and sad. She looks up at Leilah through her dark wet lashes. “Promise me?” She pleads.

 _“Yes.”_ Leilah says, before she can stop herself. Magic burns at her throat, scorching so hot she thinks she might combust. But then her human smiles at her, watery and bright, stray tears rolling down her flushed cheeks, looking at her like she just gifted her the moon. And Leilah can barely feel the choking blaze anymore. _Beautiful._

“You’re the best.” She says bumping Leilah’s chin with her forehead. “Now let’s take a look at your hands.”

Leilah sits patiently and watches her human work. _Clever little thing._ She’d not been afraid after all. _Of course not,_ her human is brave. Leilah pulls at a stray curl by her Daisy Blossom’s little round ear. She sticks her tongue out at her. _Flirt._ Leilah smiles.

Her daisy ties her bandages into a fancy frilly knot and unfolds herself to stretch, hair falling in a curtain around her. Leilah sees it then, framed by glossy curls, the purple red bloom in the hollow of her human’s throat.

The magic under her skin screeches.

She’ll have to break her promise sooner than she thought.


	11. Chapter 11

Convincing her boyfriend that she can take care of herself is not as hard as she expected.

“I’ll come with you.” Kandomere says when she comments about checking on the shop and watering her plants. Her shop is her masterpiece, her precious child, carefully curated and tended to with all the love she has to spare. Keeping away from it has made her antsy.

“You have work.” She says, tucking his tie into his vest and smoothing her fingers over his stiff shirt collar.

“We can go after I get off work then.” His tone is final and he wraps his arms around her waist before she can flit away. She pouts at him. He’s worried for her safety, she knows, but it’s been  _days_  and nothing’s happened. And in the back of her mind even after everything she’s seen she knows,  _she knows,_  Lily  _(Leilah)_  would never hurt her.

They haven’t discussed it  _(her)_  beyond  _“she’s a Bright, she’s dangerous,”_  but her boyfriend thinks that of anything and everything magic related and they’ve always agreed to disagree on that anyway. So Lily ( _Leilah,_  she corrects herself,  _get it right_ ) is a Bright.  _That’s why she was being all shifty,_  she thinks, it couldn’t have been easy being hunted down and forced to be monitored by the authorities. She wonders if  _Leilah_  knew who she was when they met. Ex-girlfriend of the federal agent who’s been trying to arrest her. _How ridiculous,_  she shoves the thought away. It makes sense now, the hostility between them,  _but they didn’t have to kill each other over it._

She’s still upset over the fight even though her elf’s all healed up.  _(“Barely a scratch.” He’d said when she insisted on nightly examinations.)_  Because Leilah had given him a concussion and god knows what he’d done to her, the floor had been so covered in blood. And of course,  _of course,_  she’d be caught in the middle of it all.  _(Impetuous chit, nana used to call her.)_  She’s worried for Leilah too and it makes her feel just a little edge of guilt when her boyfriend comes home with exhaustion sitting heavy on his shoulders.

“Well I can’t just stay in the apartment all day.” She says, leaning into Kandomere. “I’m only going to go clean up and then we can have lunch together.” She flashes him her best pretty-please-smile.

“Fine.” He grumbles, she can feel the vibrations where she’s pressed against his chest. “But you’re not allowed to invite Ulysses.”

“Deal.”

He drops her off and waits for her to set up before leaving. “You’re gonna be late if you don’t go soon.” She whines into his mouth when he presses in to steal another kiss.

“I told you we have a system.” But he straightens up, leaving her with the promise of an extra-long lunch date.

She gets straight to work, rotating all the potted plants in the display window so they can enjoy the sunshine. It’s nearly noon by the time she’s done and dusted, hauling the last clean terrarium out into the show room. The bell above the door jingles and she answers before looking up.

“I’m sorry we’re not-” She cuts herself off with a strangled noise.

It’s her.

_Leilah._

Standing in the doorway with an uncertain look on her face. She must be tired, dark circles sinking deep and… _oh!_ Her hands are a disaster.  _Elves._

Leilah follows her like a baby duckling when she leads her to the tiny cluttered greenhouse in the back.  _Dangerous my ass,_  she thinks, rummaging through the utility cabinet for a first aid kit. And she’s suddenly struck by the realisation that she must be Leilah’s  _only friend._  After living the life of a fugitive, always on the run, and oh how savage she had been when she’d thought Kandomere was holding her hostage. Her eyes sting.

“Look at me little daisy.” Leilah says in her steady quiet voice. But she can’t because she’s a crybaby and Leilah must have been living like this  _for years_  and she hasn’t even complained about it.

Leilah wedges herself between her and the sink so she ducks her head to try and avoid her eyes. No luck.

“Look at me.”

She does and she breaks immediately. This woman had risked her freedom for her, however mistaken she had been, and now she was comforting  _her_  even though she was the one with injuries.  _How can Kandomere think so horribly of her?_  She wraps her arms around Leilah like a shield  _(poor thing)._

“Promise me you won’t fight again.” She says, squeezing her shoulders hard. She’ll convince her to turn herself in and then she’ll sweet talk her boyfriend into giving Leilah as much privacy as the bureau will allow. “Please?”

There’s a long pause before she answers her. “Yes.” Leilah says, curiously breathless.

She beams.

Leilah sits quietly while she cleans her up. Her knuckles are a patchwork of half scabs and fresh tears.  _Honestly, elves._  She shakes her head and fills the silence with casual chatter.  _Wait until she’s all better to bring the up the Bright thing,_  she tells herself, covering the awful wounds with antiseptic gel. Leilah doesn’t utter a single peep even though she knows it must sting.

She ties off the bandage in an unnecessarily complicated bow  _(try to rip it off now, I dare you)_ and stands to stretch. Her phone chimes loudly from her jacket pocket and she skips over to where it hangs on the hook on the opposite wall. This is the lightest she’s felt in nearly two weeks. Kandomere’s name flashes across the touch screen.

“Hi!” She greets with extra cheer.

“It’s 1:56 querida, and you haven’t answered any of my texts.” His voice is strained.

“Oh no! I’m sorry.” She knocks her forehead with the back of her hand. “I got caught up at the shop.”

He sighs on the other end of the line, she can _see_  him pinching his brow. “Mi amor…”

“I know, I know. I’ll make it up to you-”

“Hang up.” Leilah hisses into her ear, arms appearing on either side of her, caging her to the wall. She starts.  _How did she? ...Damn elves._

“Querida?” His voice is suddenly urgent.  _Oh crap did he hear her?_

“Hang up.” Leilah says louder now as if to spite her.

“Mi amor!”

“I...” She’s not sure who to answer, the rapid back and forth giving her mental whiplash.

Leilah decides for her, snatching the phone out of her hand.  _“Agent.”_ She says  _(a wave of her matador cape)_  before ending the call and setting the device on the high shelf of the cabinet.

“Why did you  _do_  that? Do you know how much trouble we’re gonna be in?” She huffs indignantly, trying to reach up for her phone. Too high.  _Damn it._

Leilah stills her with marble hands on her hips. Her gaze is intense, hypnotic almost. “You don’t have to worry about him.” She says, angling her face close, their lips almost touching.

“What-?” She’s too close.  _What is happening? What..?_

Leilah kisses her.

The shivers come back.


	12. Chapter 12

They’ve raided three warehouses since his fight with Leilah, the most progress the MTF has made in years and morale at headquarters is at an all-time high. And even though there’ve been no significant arrests (no  _Witch_  not yet) it’s enough to make Kandomere almost giddy.  _Control yourself,_  he tells his reflection in the mirrored glass window of the interrogation rooms, but he can’t seem to wipe the satisfied smirk from his face. The hard work comes after of course, decoding confiscated documents and interrogating prisoners. It’s tiring, but then his work day ends and he comes home to his pretty flower shop girl and her smile is worth every stiff joint and tense muscle _._

She catches him in a good mood, riding high from the previous day’s breakthrough with coded ovüsi.

“I’m only going to go clean up and then we can have lunch together.” She says, resting her chin over his heart, draping her arms over his shoulders. Batting her eyelashes at him for good measure.

“Fine.” Kandomere says, because he couldn’t say no when she looked at him like  _that_  and because Leilah wouldn’t dare show her face around them now, not with his team closing in on her. She rewards him with a kiss and a smile brighter than sunshine.  _Oh yes,_  she is worth _everything._

The day flies by in a whirlwind. He and Montehugh flip a coin for good cop bad cop and he was thoroughly enjoying playing the foul tempered federal agent  _(probably a little too much)_. They break for coffee when the suspect tries to bite off his own tongue.

“I thought you had a lunch date.” Montehugh says, fanning himself with a sheaf of notes. “It’s way past noon Boss.” He squints at his watch.

 _Damn._  Kandomere grabs his phone from his pocket, he’d kept it on silent for the interview. Her smile greets him from his home screen. No texts, no calls. There’s a familiar prickling on the back of his neck,  _your worrywart senses,_  his girl calls it.

“Two hours.” He says to Montehugh before he makes his way to the parking lot, ignoring his partner’s low whistle.  _Forgive me querida, I’m on my way over. Where would you like to eat?_  He texts her as he heads to his car. She hasn’t replied by the time he reaches the first stop light. The prickling grows stronger.

_Are you angry with me mi amor?_

No response.

_Send me an emoji at least cariña please._

Nothing.

The prickling on the back of his neck feels like inch long needles.

The streets are unusually crowded for a weekday afternoon. Kandomere parks as close to his girl’s shop as he can but he’s still a block away. He calls her, pulling at his too stiff collar.

“Hi!” She picks up on the first ring and the tension bleeds out of him immediately.

“It’s,” he checks his watch, “1:56 querida, and you haven’t answered any of my texts.”

“Oh no I’m sorry! I got caught up at the shop.” He can picture her leaning against the wall, hair loose, blowing that one rebellious curl out of her face. Kandomere lets out a relieved sigh.

“Hang up.” He hears it as clear as a church bell even though her voice is low and hushed.  _It can’t be._

“Querida?” Kandomere can feel his insides pull together into a tense knot.

“Hang up.” Again, louder now.  _It is._

His blood freezes.  _No._

“Mi amor!”

His girl makes a noise like a startled kitten and the next thing Kandomere hears is,  _“Agent.”_  In Leilah’s knife edge voice. He’s bolting down the street before the call even ends, pushing, shoving, elbowing his way through the crowd.

_Damn her. Damn the Witch!_

And damn him too for his cockiness.

The flower shop is empty when he crashes through its doors, gun drawn. He should call for backup, should be following the safety protocols that were drilled into his head duing training, but he can’t remember any of it. The word, _agent,_ echoes in his ears like a curse.

The show room lights are off but the afternoon sun glares hotly through the display window. The door leading to the greenhouse is ajar, spilling light over the shadowed floor. Kandomere slows his steps, they’re measured now, deliberate, like a hunter.

 _Focus,_ he tells himself. _Focus or it’s game over._

Pressure gathers between his shoulder blades. There’s no way Leilah didn’t hear him enter, so what is she waiting for?

Uneven creaking slices through the heavy humid air, his human stumbles out of the greenhouse. Kandomere surges forward to take her into his arms but she jerks back violently. Her mouth is bloody, pupils blown wide with a slim ring of unnatural silver glowing around them.

“Querida?” He tries again, approaching her slowly this time. She backs away from him pressing into the wall, huffing quick short breaths and clutching at her chest.

“Come back to me pretty daisy.” Leilah strolls through the door lazily. She’s armed, wand blazing brilliant blue in her hand.

Kandomere springs into position, raising his gun to shoot but movement in his peripheral vision stops him. His human unfurls from behind him, the silver around her pupils glittering like diamonds, like stars.

“Come.” Leilah holds out her free hand, wand burning bright in the other. Kandomere watches in horror as his pretty shop flower girl drifts over to the Witch like a moth to candle flame. He grabs on to her arm pulling her back with frantic strength.

“Look at me!” He demands through clenched teeth. She lifts her head but her gaze is foggy. She’s still having trouble breathing, fingers digging hard into the spot above her heart. “Mi amor…”

 _“Get your hands off of her!”_ Leilah growls. She aims her wand at him.

“Please,” a breathless whisper below his ear. “You promised.” Kandomere looks down at his human, her face is strained, the silver around her dilated pupils flickering sluggishly.

Leilah’s wand hand falters for a moment, the look she gives his girl is almost indulgent. “Come,” she says. The silver around his human’s pupils flare to life and she moves to step forward.

“No!” Kandomere grips her arm tightly, twisting to fire a shot at Leilah. She dodges, recovering quickly and aiming her wand at him. Leilah mutters something in brisk ovüsi and he’s blasted back by a current of blistering heat. For a moment he thinks he’s been reduced to ashes, lightning searing through his muscles.

Kandomere wakes.

He’s lying on the floor of his girl’s dark empty flower shop. It’s dusk outside the big display window, veiling the city in a hazy purple smoke.

_Damn the Witch._


	13. Chapter 13

Leilah’s human tastes like summer peaches, sweet and soft on her tongue. She pushes against her shoulders, gasping into her mouth like a spooked songbird.  _Delightful,_  Leilah thinks and swallows down her cry. It’s everything she remembers and more and then her pretty Daisy Blossom  _bites her._  Salted copper and peaches and  _her human_  flood her senses (like drowning in ambrosia). _Yes! Oh yes!_  Her hands flutter from Leilah's shoulders to the back of her neck, tugging at her hair.  _Harder,_  Leilah wants to tell her but can’t, not until they both need to breathe again.

Her own hands wander over her human’s hips and up her smooth thighs, under the floaty skirt that would drive her to distraction whenever her little daisy wears it. Leilah hooks one slim leg around her waist and presses herself even closer to her pretty flower shop girl. It’s not enough. She nips at her human’s bottom lip, brushing her tongue over those little blunt teeth.

This is the Elysium promised by her Lord she's sure of it.

When she finally pulls away it's to rest her forehead against her human's, admiring the flush on her cheeks. The flush she painted on with her kiss. Her human is stunning, lips stained crimson, blood still beading in gleaming rubies where Leilah’s teeth pierced her skin. She’s looking at her too with wide doe eyes, dark lashes fluttering like butterfly wings. Leilah can feel her shuddering beneath her palms.

“Leilah,” her human says. Syllables dripping off her tongue like honey.  _How sweet her little daisy is._  She guides Leilah’s hand off her thigh and takes it gently in her own. “We can’t do this.”

Leilah weaves their fingers together, _what nonsense is running through her human’s mind?_  She leans into the soft palm her human lays on her jaw. “What are you talking about?” Leilah’s voice comes out hoarse.  _Do you see what you do to me?_

“Leilah.” Hearing her name, her true name, spoken in her human’s voice is exhilarating, is spring rain on desert sand. Leilah wraps her free arm around her waist to steady her shivering Daisy Blossom.

“Leilah, I have a boyfriend.”

The magic under Leilah’s skin screams, red hot spikes of it tearing through her nerves, trying to escape, to strike. So this is what the  _Wretch_  has done in her absence then. Not only has he marked her human  _(her human, her human, her human),_  he’s been manipulating her feelings too, taking advantage of her empathy, her gentle soul.

 _Oh_ _I will flay you aliv_ _e. Just watch me._

What else has he done to her? What lies, what horrors has he forced on to this fragile creature? And yet he claims to be righteous and honourable? Leilah’s veins hum with repressed magic. The wand in her pocket pulses along to her heartbeat rolling like the earth before a catastrophic quake.

“I’m sorry, everything’s a mess and it’s all my fault.” She rests her head on Leilah’s shoulder and then pulls back sharply. “I’m sorry.” Her human tries to move away.  _No! No!_  Leilah grips her tight.  _Enough of this madness._

Her daisy is too tender-hearted, it’s one of the things Leilah loved about her. Love.  _Yes._  Leilah loves this human  _(her human)_ _._ As much as she loves Tikka. As much as she loves  _her Lord._  The sentiment rips through her like a hurricane, fanning the angry flames of magic that lick up and down her limbs.

Of course the Wretch would be drawn to it too, her daisy’s kindness. She looks up at Leilah with pleading eyes, mouth trembling.  _Precious, delicate little thing._  She won’t listen to reason, Leilah knows. Her human believes too strongly in goodness and compassion. There can only be one solution then.  _Guide my hand,_  Leilah sends a prayer to her Lord, and reaches for her wand.

She plants a gentle kiss between her human’s brows, smearing her blood on to soft skin. A distraction.

“Leilah.” Her human says, trying to pull away again. Leilah presses her wand to her human’s temple and lets her Lord speak with her voice. Magic courses through her like a torrential downpour and she watches in awe as her daisy is drenched with it. Dark eyes washed in silver light.

 _Careful,_  says a low rumble in Leilah’s mind,  _remember she is human._  Oh but her daisy looks so lovely like this, bathed in Leilah’s magic.  _Just a little more._

She falls against her suddenly, panting hard. “Leilah…” Her human chokes, fingers scrabbling blindly at her own throat. Leilah tries to rein in her power but it won’t listen. She lets her human push away from her.  _Break the connection,_  she cries out in her head. And her clever little Daisy Blossom does just that, stumbling out of the sweltering greenhouse.  _Breathe,_  Leilah urges her and leans against the wall to catch her own breath.

 _How enchanting her little human is._  She can bring her back to the compound now, introduce her to Tikka. Leilah smiles. A commotion outside rouses her from her daydream.

“Querida?” Leilah hears.

 _Damn you!_ She hadn’t expected him to show up so soon.

Leilah stalks into the flower shop’s show room charged with electric strength and sees him,  _the Wretch,_  hovering over her human like a shroud. Her wand roars in her hand.

“Come back to me pretty daisy.” She commands, and feels a swift drag of magnetic energy pooling in her rib cage.

Leilah’s human obeys, the silver in her eyes shining as luminous as the sun. She sees fear climb over the Wretch’s face and she wants to laugh. An elf afraid of magic.  _Pathetic._

Kandomere howls in rage and traps her human in his arms. He’s too strong for her little daisy.

“Get your hands off of her!” Leilah growls.  _How dare he! How fucking dare he!_  She levels her wand to his face, ready to fire.

“Please.” Her human’s voice cuts through the deafening waterfall of anger and magic in Leilah’s ears. She’s panting still, gasping little huffs of air. “You promised.”

_(I don’t want to see you fight again.)_

Leilah hesitates. She won’t do this in front of her human then. “Come.” She says, holding out her free hand.  _Come back to me._

“No!” The Wretch opens fire on her. Leilah drops to the ground, swearing under her breath.  _Forgive me Daisy Blossom._  Fever heat gathers in her hand.  _Just a taste today,_  Leilah thinks. _I won’t kill you yet, not in front of her._  She aims carefully over her human’s shoulder.  _Don’t move little one._

It’s over in a burst of dazzling light. Her daisy falls forward as the Wretch is blown back, hitting the floor with a sickening crack. Leilah catches her human and jumps for the door immediately. She clears the street in a single leap, boosted by her wand, landing cleanly on a shaded rooftop.

She can’t bring her human back to the compound, not now. He’ll have his goons track them. Leilah wants to scream. She should have killed him years ago. Her human stirs in her arms, pressing her face into Leilah’s neck, lips brushing against her throat. Leilah’s anger recedes like the tide. Her pretty flower shop girl was worth every bit of this  _inconvenience._

_But where should I take you Daisy Blossom?_

The back of Leilah’s hand tingles. The same hand that her human had neatly printed on months ago with silver ink.

 _Thank you my Lord._  Leilah says reverently in her head and receives a hum of approval.

“Hush you.” She whispers fondly when her human moves, restless, against her chest in her magic induced coma.

It’s easier this time, getting into her human’s apartment, aided by her wand. She’s surprised _he_ hasn’t sent his men to monitor it. _Cocky fool._ Leilah carries her human over the threshold like a bride, cradling her to her heart. She picks out her human’s room by scent and the rosy tinted walls that were just so very like her. She lays her little daisy on to the blush coloured bedspread, rearranging her silken curls around her pretty face. She’ll sleep for a while yet. Leilah runs her index finger down the bridge of her human’s nose and she scrunches it up like a kitten.  _You are too cute,_  her human told her once.  _So are you,_  Leilah thinks. She leaves her to her slumber, eager for an uninterrupted glimpse of her little daisy’s world.

The apartment is small and clean and exactly as Leilah imagined. Sweet, warm, like her human.  _Tikka would like it here,_  she thinks as she explores the cozy guest bedroom down the hall, imagining how happy her sister would be to have a room like this, bright and airy with a large window that opened out to the ivy covered walls. The antithesis of their dark, stifling, _airless_ rooms at the compound.  _I will bring her here,_  Leilah decides. The MTF rats are getting too close anyway, her coven will have to uproot soon. She will bring Tikka here so both her little loves will have company, away from the blood and violence they detested so.

The hall and her bookshelf in the living room are covered in picture frames. Leilah examines each and every single photo, watching her human grow in them from toddling child to beautiful young woman. There are other people in them too. A kind-faced couple posing with the infant version of her little daisy, beaming at the camera. An older woman with grey hair and fine wrinkles around her eyes. She can pick out her human’s features in them, _family._ She thinks of Tikka, of the blurry shadows she recalls as her parents, they’re nothing like her human’s family.

Another photo shows the Daisy Blossom she knows now smiling pretty, and the other elf, _the Wretch,_ holding her close. She rips this one off the shelf, smashing the frame on the kitchen counter and tearing it in half. Her daisy’s photo she tucks into the pocket lining her jacket, the Wretch she burns and drops into the sink, washing the ashes down the drain.

Leilah returns to her human’s bedside, lying down next to her. Her little flower shop girl turns over in her sleep, facing Leilah now.  _Oh you pretty thing._  She strokes a thumb over her daisy’s warm cheek.

 _Rest now Daisy Blossom,_ _rest_ _and dream of me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been sitting on this chapter because i'm not happy with the characterisation but i can't even look at it anymore smdh. next couple of chapters are also looking rough :c feedback would be highly appreciated. you can also drop me a line [here](http://rcsehips.tumblr.com/ask) if you prefer to be anonymous. thanks y'all!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i churned this out way quicker than i thought i would be able to and it went a completely different direction than i was planning.

_Breathe._

She’s 14 years old and underwater. It’s in her mouth, her eyes, her ears, her lungs and it _hurts._ She’s sinking.

“Come on kid, we need you to breathe!” The voice is loud and quiet at the same time, swishing close then far away. There’s a heavy pressure on her ribs, cement blocks hammering on her chest, pushing down like angry waves.

_Breathe._

Her skin is freezing but inside it’s scorching hot. _Is this what dying feels like?_

One more push and the water in her lungs rushes up all at once, burning a ragged path along her throat. She’s on her back on the side of the highway and there’s a man in an EMT uniform crouching over her.

Later, after they take her to the hospital and she’s tucked in for overnight observation, the police come to tell her that they were run off the road by a drunk driver. Daddy swerved and crashed through the guardrail going 70 miles per hour.

Her parents are dead.

..

Leilah presses something hot and glowing to her temple and it feels like she’s drowning again. She can’t move, something’s pushing into her brain, sharp like metal nails. And the only thought that she can hold on to is the one that still gives her nightmares. _I’m sorry to have to tell you this Miss._

She doesn’t remember how to breathe.

“Leilah…” _Help me please._ It hurts to speak. Leilah rips the blinding light away from her face but she still can’t see. The room’s too bright and everything’s vibrating. And then she hears her in her head, Leilah tells her to back away so she does. _Move._ She forces her muscles to work against the invisible hooks on her arms and legs.

She staggers out of the greenhouse and prays for her body to stop hurting. There’s someone grabbing for her, but she doesn’t know who. All she can see and hear are flashing lights and buzzing like a million bumble bees and… _wait._

“Look at me!” She knows this voice. “Mi amor…” This is the voice that calls her back whenever she’s stuck in _that nightmare._ Like an anchor. She blinks to try and clear her vision, focusing on the person in front of her. _Blue, blue, blue._ Her ears stop buzzing.

“Querida?” _It’s him!_ Relief sweeps through her like a cool breeze even though her head’s still pounding. She tries to speak but nothing comes out, her throat is on fire and she still _can’t breathe._

“Come back to me.” Leilah says, she hears it twice, from the other side of the room and in her head. Her mind goes cloudy and suddenly the only thing she wants is to be as close to Leilah as possible.

The invisible hooks pull her to Leilah and she lets them, they don’t hurt when she does what they want her to do. Someone drags her back and the hooks dig hard into her muscles. The pain is unbearable.

They’re screaming at each other like wild animals. It’s too loud, her heart feels like it’s about to explode. She has to stop them.

“Please,” She rasps. It scrapes up her windpipe. “You promised.” She hopes they can hear her.

And then everything fast forwards and she’s underwater again.

_Come on kid, we need you to breathe!_

_I’m sorry to have to tell you this Miss._

_We’re so sorry for your loss._

She wants to scream.

..

_Daddy was a botanist and for the longest time that was what she wanted to be too. But then her parents die and she doesn't and she grows up._

_She finishes school and uses her settlement from the accident to open a flower shop instead._

Nana comes to pick her up from the hospital but she refuses to get in the car. They cry together on her cramped hospital bed until the EMTs that brought her in volunteer to give them a ride on their break.

“Be strong _aga._ ” Nana says, stroking her hair with a wrinkled hand.

..

Nana’s stroking her hair, carding through the knots with gentle fingers. She leans into her touch like she’s 14 again.

_“Halmi?”_

“Are you awake?” Not nana. _Who?_ She forces her eyes open to look for the voice.

There’s an elf girl sitting on the edge of her bed. She’s pretty.

“Did you sleep well?” The elf girl asks excitedly.

“No.” She answers and winces because the words scratch at her throat.

“Stay still please. Let me get Leilah.” The elf girl scrambles out of the room.

 _Leilah._ There’s a strange tugging in her head and right beneath her ribs. She knows Leilah, she misses Leilah. _Where is she?_

The elf girl comes back with a glass of water in one hand, a face towel in the other, and Leilah following behind her.

“You’re awake.” Leilah says in her quiet voice, she’s smiling. She brushes a hand over her damp forehead and the tugging dulls down.

“Hi.” She smiles back. There’s something she’s forgetting and she doesn’t know what it is, but that’s all right. Everything’s all right now because Leilah’s here, the invisible hooks in her limbs don’t hurt anymore.

Leilah helps her sit up and motions for the other elf girl to come forward. “This is my sister, Tikka.” Tikka waves at her shyly, she can see her better now that her vision’s clear. She waves back and Tikka breaks into a grin.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you for two whole days.” Tikka says. “That’s how long you’ve been sleeping.”

“Two days?” No wonder her mind’s so foggy.

Leilah wraps an arm around her shoulders and she leans in automatically, drawn in like a magnet. Tikka giggles from her perch at the foot of the bed.

“Hush you.” Leilah says to her sister, but she sounds amused. Tikka sticks her tongue out at them. _How adorable._

“Are you hungry?” Leilah asks. Her stomach grumbles loudly in answer and she feels her cheeks heat up. She buries her face in Leilah’s shoulder.

“Come on then.” Leilah laughs, lifting her like she weighs nothing. They file into the small kitchen. Leilah sits her down at the kitchen island and Tikka parks herself next to her pushing the glass of water into her hands.

“Drink up!” She says.

She sips at the cool water and watches the elf sisters root around her cupboards. There’s something she’s forgetting and it’s bothering her. Leilah looks over her shoulder, sending a rare smile her way.

 _Never mind,_ she shakes her head.

_Everything’s fine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _aga:_ (korean) baby  
>  _halmi:_ (korean) granny


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating has been increased for graphic depictions of violence and gore.

One week.

They’d kept him strapped to a hospital bed for seven infuriatingly long days, hooking him up to an army of loud, ugly machines to monitor for residual magical side effects. His arms are full of pinholes now and two perfectly symmetrical circular bruises grace his temples. And for what? They got nothing. He could have told them as much if they hadn’t had him sedated. It wasn’t how Leilah operated, twenty years had taught him that much at least.

Seven days wasted and The Witch was in the wind with his girl at her mercy.

His hand is in bandages again, knuckles split open after punching a hole into the wall of the chief’s office. They’ve reassigned him to desk duty after he confronted the  _coward._   _“Don’t make me suspend you.”_  He’d said when Kandomere burst into his office after he ordered  _Montehugh_  of all people to tell him they’d taken him off the case.  _Couldn’t even say it to his face._  He wants to hit something, channel his anger into pummeling anything other than the fraud sitting in the plush leather chair one floor above him lest he be demoted even further.

“You have a personal connection to this case.” The chief had said blandly, scanning over the notes from the plain manila folder (so utterly unassuming for the contents it held) on his desk with a mildly disapproving look on his face. “I’m just following protocol.”

_Fuck protocol._

Kandomere’s skin is still red where magic swept over him like a tidal wave, the burns pulling tight where they’ve healed.  _“This will scar.”_  The ER doctor said to him.

A reminder of his failure.

(He has nightmares in the hospital for seven days straight and they don’t go away even after the doctors stop drugging him. It’s like all those terrible months from before but worse now because she’s  _gone. She’s gone. She’s gone._  The Witch has her.)

The chief watches his team like a hawk and the others clam up the second Kandomere walks into the room. It takes everything in him not to blow up, not to actually  _earn_  that suspension. He needs to be close  _in case._  Montehugh feeds him whatever scraps he can but even he’s wary. “I can’t play favourites Boss.” He says and Kandomere understands, or tries to understand at least. It grates on his nerves.

“You uh, wanna take this? I’ve been a little busy.” Montehugh slides a plastic document sleeve on to his desk. “Gotta notify the next of kin.”  _A little busy._  For seven whole days. His partner was risking his own suspension for this. Kandomere hesitates for a moment before grabbing the file and locking himself in the conference room. None of the other agents look up as he passes, he’s grateful.

Breaking the news to her grandmother is worse than he imagined. She doesn’t like him and the feeling is mutual but his girl adored her nana so he fully prepared himself to face her anger. He thought he was prepared.

 _“I knew this was going to happen!”_  She hisses at him over the phone.  _“I knew it! I knew it! My aga!”_  Her cries are worse than any insult, any curse. Worse than absolutely anything she could have slung at him. For all they’ve never seen eye to eye he’d always admired how his girl’s grandmother is made of steel and now he’s managed to break her too.

She hangs up on him before he can swear to her that he will bring their girl back. The dial tone sounds like a condemnation.

Kandomere can still see his pretty flower shop girl’s eyes, sightless and silver rimmed. He’d never seen her look so horrified (not even when she was caught in her night terrors), grasping at her heart to force herself to breathe. There was a moment where he thought she recognized him, relief washing over her face before she’d looked right through him again. He’d seen this once before as an unseasoned agent, young and full of himself, when his ego led him and his first partner right into the middle Leilah’s path. And The Witch made him watch as she commanded his partner to slit his own throat.

The man’s (just a boy really) screams ring loud in his ears begging him to  _please, please for the love of god help me!_  And god knows he tried but he couldn’t move an inch, couldn’t even blink, eyelids held in place by some invisible force. All Kandomere could do was watch, eyes watering from strain. His partner’s eyes had watered too, glowing silver bright. Leilah made sure he was lucid enough to feel himself bleed out. After, when the screaming finally stopped and all that was left of his partner,  _his friend,_  was a dried out husk, The Witch tossed him into the pool of salty sweet blood. And he still couldn’t move, not an inch, laying there in the cooling, curdling blood. It soaked through his clothes, stained his skin. He smelled like blood for weeks (months, years) after.

It’s been the scene of his nightmares for twenty years, dark eyes gleaming pearly silver, cold blood, and  _help me please!_  But now the corpse is different, smaller, long hair drenched in dark red. And her sightless eyes look right through him.

 _‘She was my friend’,_  he remembers reading from the statement she gave Montehugh weeks ago and prays to the powers that be that The Witch had enough of a heart to think of her as that too. But he knows,  _he knows,_  Leilah is a monster. He’s  _seen_  what she could do and it terrifies him.  _Please,_  he prays, he’s not sure to whom.  _Please._

His team comes back from a raid he didn’t even know was scheduled until he walked into the empty office that morning. Montehugh’s note on his desk tells him  _don’t you dare tail us._  And under that,  _trust me yeah?_  He does trust his partner, he trusts Montehugh with his life but his life isn’t the one on the line. They file in solemnly and for a second he thinks the very worst has happened. Montehugh’s the last one in, scrubbing at his face roughly with one hand. He shakes his head at Kandomere,  _nothing,_  and his heart’s not sure whether to sink or float. They have no Witch, but they have no corpse (no salty sweet pool of blood) either. Montehugh motions for him follow and leads him to the fire escape.

“This sucks ass.” His partner says lighting up a cigarette. Kandomere wrinkles his nose but doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have it in him to give a lecture right now. “They cleared out.” Montehugh says through a drag of smoke. “Scorched-earth the entire building. We were close though, I know we were.” He gives Kandomere a look then slips something out of his pocket.

“We were real close Boss.”

His girl smiles up at him from the picture in Montehugh’s hand. Kandomere snatches it immediately, nearly ripping it in half. He knows this picture, remembers his pretty flower shop girl teasing a smile on to his face after she roped some stranger into taking the photo for them. Half of it is missing, charred on the edges, but her face is untouched, doe eyes sparkling. Not silver.

“Where did you find this?” His voice is sandy, his throat feels like a cement mixer.

“One of the back rooms that they didn’t manage to burn down. Looked like a girl lived there.”

Kandomere sucks in a harsh breath, cigarette smoke filling his lungs. Montehugh claps a hand on to his shoulder.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” His partner says. “I know you. You’re all suave and in control until you’re emotionally invested and then it’s hellfire. Let us handle this yeah?”

He shrugs off Montehugh’s hand and storms back inside. His partner means well and he knows it but he couldn’t just do  _nothing._  Not when he can still hear screams echoing through twenty years, still feel blood on his skin, still see his pretty flower shop girl choking on air.

 _Scorched-earth the entire building._  So there was nothing left, no leads to follow. He stares at the photograph in his hand, tracing the tip of his pinky over her cheek.  _I’ll find you._  Her picture smiles at him endearingly, glossy save for where it’s torn and singed. It was the first picture they’d ever taken together that wasn’t one of his girl’s stealth selfies. He’d tried to make her delete it and she’d framed it and displayed it smack dab in the middle of her living room just to spite him. Kandomere turns on his heel and speeds back out on to the fire escape pushing the door right into Montehugh’s shoulder.

“What the hell man?”

“We need to go now.”

Montehugh stares at him then looks up at the windows a floor above. He sighs, taking one last pull of smoke before snuffing out his cigarette against the cement wall. “I’m driving.”

They take the stairs and speed out of the parking lot before anyone sees them.

“Where to Boss?”

Kandomere can’t speak, can hardly keep himself still in his seat, adrenaline rushing through his veins like white-water. He flashes a familiar key ring at his partner and Montehugh nods, stepping on the accelerator. His healed burns ache, muscles pulling taut. The glossy photo in his hand feels like an anchor.

_I’ll find you querida I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't think i've ever written anything as disturbing as the imagery in this chapter.
> 
> please consider dropping off a prompt here or [@rcsehips](http://rcsehips.tumblr.com/ask) for my [writer's block collection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053720) as i work through reconciling The Witch with lovesick Leilah. writing puff pieces helps me focus :)
> 
> ♡♡♡


	16. Chapter 16

Her human is still asleep when she returns to the compound to retrieve her sister. The corridors are empty still, and dark, lit only by the wandering light peeking under the doors of the few occupied rooms. Tikka’s bedroom is at the end of the long hall, the light under her door shining brightest in the gloomy passage.

Her sister opens the door immediately when she knocks, pulling at it with such force that Leilah can feel a rush of air tug her hair forward. It’s terribly humid, it was when she left and even more so now. Tikka drags her inside and locks the door behind them, darting to her little window to look outside, then pacing the room like a caged animal. Leilah tries to speak but her sister cuts her off.

“Something’s wrong.” Her voice wavers between syllables, she sounds breathless. “Leilah something’s wrong.” She’s been wringing her hands Leilah can tell, they’re red where her nails have bit into her skin.

Leilah steps into her sister’s path, gripping her shoulders to still her. “Calm down.” She says, brushing a hand along Tikka’s spine, soothing magic passing through them both. “Tell me what happened.”

Tikka furrows her brows, face pinched as she tries to explain. “Nothing happened I just, I… Something doesn’t feel right. I don’t know!” She hunches her shoulders in frustration. “Something’s happened. Or something’s going to happen? I think we should leave.” Her last few words are no more than a wisp in the tense silence but they’re firm, defiant. Leilah eases her hold, steering her sister over to the little bed on the other end of the cramped room. She sits Tikka down and brushes the back of her hand against one warm cheek.

“Where would we go?” She asks, voice low. Tikka flinches.

“I don’t know.”

Leilah reaches into her jacket, skimming over her dozing wand. Fingertips lingering on half of a glossy photograph, one edge frayed from tearing, before slipping it from her pocket. She smooths it out and holds it up in front of her sister.

“This is my human.” Leilah says, a restless tingle climbing up the back of her neck. She watches Tikka’s face closely as her sister reaches for the photograph, tilting it into the glow of the string lights hanging along the wall.

Tikka looks curiously from the photo to her and back, licking her lips with a nervous twitch. “Your  _human?”_

Leilah lifts the corners of her mouth into an encouraging grin. “Yes.  _My human.”_

Tikka looks at the photo again, then her. She grins back tentatively, a thread of mischief on her lips.  _“Your human.”_  She whispers with emphasis, raising her eyebrows high. Her sister looks like an impish child. Warm honey floods Leilah’s rib cage, she clears her throat.

“My human has an apartment on the other side of the city,” She says. “With a room for you. A room with a big window”

Tikka pauses in her examination of the photo, dropping it into her lap to blink at her.

“You mean it?” There’s excitement in her voice and wariness too. Leilah understands, they’ve been wayfarers, nomads for too long. She smooths a hand over Tikka’s hair.

“Yes.”

Tikka jumps on her with an excited squeak, squeezing the air out of her lungs, and then pulls back, face somber. “The others will be mad.”

Leilah bites her tongue, nicking it with her teeth. “The others will do as they’re told.” She says imperiously. “You needn’t worry, sister.”

Tikka looks away, picking up the photograph from her bed and lifting it into the light again. “She’s pretty.” She turns back to Leilah. “Is she nice?”

“Yes.” Leilah answers automatically. Of course  _her human_  is nice. She starts when Tikka traces a finger across her face, along her smile lines. She hadn’t realised she was smiling.

Tikka grins at her. “I like her already.”

She watches her sister pack as quickly and efficiently as possible. Tikka was right, the others would not be happy with this arrangement, but Leilah was their leader and she would be damned if she let them dictate her decisions.  _Coven first,_  she remembers being taught. But Tikka was her coven too, and her human now.  _Hang the ones who think they can control her._

It’s late, witching hour. Leilah decides against summoning them all now. She’ll take Tikka away first, the others can wait. She leans against the headboard as Tikka gathers her essentials. One bag, just like the Old Ones used to tell them.

The compound feels different than when she left, smaller, more confining, boiling now. It’s too dark, even with all the lamps shining. This one they’ve stayed in longer than any of the other buildings. This one was  _home._  Or it was supposed to be. The walls are hot to the touch, she wonders how many stray sparks have grazed them, how much magic this place has absorbed from her Inferni.

They’ll have to burn it down.

“I’m ready.” Tikka calls, pack strapped across her back, rocking on the balls of her feet. “Let’s go.”

Leilah unfurls from the bed, ready to lead her sister away into the night. A crash from outside the door stops her. Tikka scurries forward, as far from the noise as she can.

“Leilah?” Calls a voice from beyond the door. It shakes in its frame as the speaker knocks hard. Leilah holds up one hand to silence her sister, slipping the other into her jacket, to her wand. Magic flows through her fingertips, striking the little window above the bed as a current of air. It clicks open silently. She nods to the murky window and Tikka climbs on top of the headboard in a flash, pushing the glass panel outwards. She slides the pack off her shoulders dropping it out the window, violent knocks masking the thud it makes as it drops to the ground.

“Leilah?” The voice calls again, irritation loud and clear. Leilah clenches her jaw,  _how insolent._  She waits until Tikka swings herself off the window sill before climbing through herself. Pushing and locking the window back in place. She’ll make an example out of this one later.

The trip to her human’s apartment feels simultaneously shorter and longer than before, it passes in a slow motion blur of long shadows and red, yellow, green, neon lights. The sky is starting to clear when they reach the ivy covered building.

Tikka’s gasps breaks her out of her reverie.

 _“Wow,”_  Is all her sister says as she stares wide eyed at the clinging vines.

Leilah leads her sister up the fire stairs to her human’s apartment. The security is nonexistent, laughable truly, but it was a  _safe human neighbourhood_  after all. Safe for her human at least, now that Leilah was here to protect her.

The apartment is as she left it, bright, light, and airy. Tikka is charmed the moment she steps inside, floating from room to room with stars in her eyes. She drifts into the guest bedroom, wrapping herself in the lacy curtains and pushing the window wide open, half hanging out of it to tangle her hands into the ivy leaves.

“We get to stay here?” Cautious hope and  _pretty please._  She’s already dropped her pack on to the plush guest bed, hugging a furred pillow to her chest. Leilah sighs, exasperated and fond.

“I promised you didn’t I?”

Tikka beams at her. Leilah’s never seen her sister smile so bright. She tosses the pillow back on to the bed, jumping to her feet to smooth the wrinkles out of her clothes.

“So…” She drags out the word, glancing at Leilah out of the corner of her eye. “When do I get to meet  _your human?”_

Leilah clicks her tongue at her sister’s cheeky expression, beckoning her to follow with a crooked finger. She leads the way to the closed door on the opposite side of the hall.

Her human is curled up into a ball on the bed, twisted in the sheets like a butterfly caught in a spider web. She’s heaving gasping sobs into her pillow. The magnetic pull in Leilah’s chest comes back at the sight of her, stronger than before, pulling her forward on metal hooks. She’s at her human’s side in two strides, hauling her gently out of the net of bedclothes. Her skin is fever hot and damp with sweat and tears, she’s mumbling something under her breath.

“Hush.” Leilah says into her hair, combing lightly through the knotted curls. Her human calms in her arms, turning her face into Leilah’s neck. She breathes a relieved sigh that breezes over Leilah’s clavicles, leaving gooseflesh in its path. Leilah smiles.

“Wow,” Tikka whispers from the doorway. She hovers there until Leilah gestures for her to come in, settling on the floor at her feet. “Is she okay?”

“She will be,” Leilah says. “She’s recovering.”

“Recovering?” Tikka furrows her brows, reaching out to fiddle with the bedspread. She rips her hand away the second she touches it. The blankets are iron hot, sweltering almost. “Magic! Really strong magic!” She looks up at Leilah. “What happened?”

“I had to keep her safe.” Leilah says, keeping her expression smooth, willing her sister to understand. “There was a  _rat_  trying to keep her from me.”

Tikka stares at her. “The one from before? The one you fought?” She casts a glance at Leilah’s bandaged knuckles, where her hands are still in her human’s hair.

Leilah hums in affirmative, shifting her human back on to the bed. She makes a grumbly kitten sound low in her throat, gripping at Leilah’s sleeves. Tikka covers her mouth with both hands to stifle a giggle.

Leilah rolls her eyes. “Not a word.” She says, swapping her human’s pillow with the one on the other side of the bed. She lays her down, pushing the blankets aside, and heads over the closet to find a fresh one.

Tikka’s sitting on the bed when she returns, twirling one of her human’s glossy curls between her fingers.

“She smells nice.” Her sister says, mischief in her eyes. “She smells like you.”

Leilah sends her a half-hearted glare, that warm feeling in her chest is ever present now. This is what she’s imagined before and it’s right in front of her. All she has to do is wait for her human to wake up and the picture will be complete. Leilah wonders if her human will want a photograph of them all together, like the ones on her shelf in the living room. She’s never had her photograph taken before, Tikka hasn’t either, but she thinks if her pretty little human asked her nicely she might just say yes.

Tikka’s stomach growls loudly, startling them both. Her sister looks sheepish when she asks, “Are we allowed to raid the fridge?” Leilah laughs out loud.

“Come on then.”

She covers her human with the new blanket, light cotton in the faint blush colour she loves so much, and leads Tikka out to the kitchen.

Her sister spends the rest of the day exploring  _her room_  after clearing out half the contents of the fridge. She’d sat herself on the window sill, wrapped the pale lace curtains around her shoulders and picked at the ivy leaves outside with a glee Leilah hadn’t seen on her face since she was small. Tikka’s taken to the abrupt changes better than she’d imagined, this was the right decision.  _Let the others grumble._

She’d planned to return to the compound after Tikka was settled, after checking in on her human once more but the magnets in her rib cage won’t let her move away. They keep her in place on the edge of her human’s bed, a pleasant thrumming right under her heart, and the closer she is to her pretty daisy the stronger it sings, spiralling through her limbs in a soft breeze. Her slumbering human’s kitten sighs draw her in like a siren’s song. It feels like magic but it can’t be. The spell she’d used on her was a simple one, just a command to obey though she’d poured more of herself into it than was necessary. Her human had looked so beautiful washed in her magic.

Leilah strokes a hand along her human’s neck. The red purple mark,  _his mark,_  is still visible on her throat. She would have killed him if her human hadn’t stopped her. Little bolts of phantom lightning pierce her skin as she thinks this, as if in punishment. An ache biting deep into her bones.  _How strange,_  the thought of upsetting her human turns the magnets in her chest into freezing pins and needles, sending painful wintry chills into her limbs. Her magic’s never reacted like this before.  _What have you done to me?_  Leilah thinks, apprehension coursing through her veins.

This human is dangerous.

Leilah traces sharp nails on smooth skin, feeling her human’s steady heartbeats,  _thump, thump, thump,_  under her fingertips. Her pretty flower shop girl turns in her sleep, nuzzling against Leilah’s hand with a sleepy contented sigh. The tension drains out of her completely, icy needles melting into warm honey. Leilah trails her hand gently down  _her human’s_  neck and slides it over her heart. Her human,  _her Daisy Blossom,_  would  _never_  try to control her like the Old Ones did, like the others in her coven still try to do. She would only ask nicely and not expect anything of her except decency, like she did in the flower shop.  _Of course she wouldn’t._

Leilah leans into her pretty daisy and presses a kiss to her lips, nipping at the skin of her bottom lip with her teeth. Sweet like summer peaches.

She abandons her plans and stays in the ivy covered apartment with her human and her sister.  _The others can wait._  Two days pass without her noticing. She spends them lingering at her human’s side or watching her sister redecorate her new bedroom. Tikka keeps track though, marking it on a calendar she’d found in a desk drawer. And on the evening of the second day her Daisy Blossom wakes and looks at her so adoringly with her wide doe eyes that Leilah forgets to breathe. She curls herself into Leilah’s side and her heart beats so hard she’s sure her human can hear it. Her sister certainly can.

Tikka warms to her human immediately. (Her sister waggles her eyebrows at Leilah over her pretty human’s head and Leilah pretends not to notice. They haven’t acted so easy around each other for years now. One more thing to thank her human for Leilah supposes.)

She wants to stay longer but her wand vibrates impatiently in her pocket. She’s put off her duties for too long already. Leilah readies herself to return to the compound. They’ve had another one prepared since the  _rats_  first started poking into her territory and now it was finally time to move on. She’ll need to clear out the old building of all the magic its walls have siphoned. And then they’ll burn it down.

“Bring me with you?” Her human asks as she straightens the lapels on Leilah’s jacket. She looks up at her through dark lashes, batting her eyes. The magnets in Leilah’s rib cage purr. Leilah tilts her human’s face up with one finger.

“It’s too dangerous,” She says. Her human pouts, bottom lip poking out temptingly. Leilah wants to bite it.

“Fine.” Her little flower shop girl says. “Bring me back something pretty then.”

Leilah raises her brow. “What would you like?”

Her human hums, looking around the room as she thinks. She walks around Leilah in a circle, tugging at a lock of white blonde hair as she comes back to stand in front of her.

“Surprise me.” She grins.

“Please stop.” Tikka calls from the living room sofa, looking vaguely green.

Leilah leaves her little loves and the ivy covered apartment behind, slipping into the purple black dusk of night. The others are waiting for her when she arrives, sitting in a circle around the wooden table in the main hall, shadows flickering across their blank faces in the dim lamp light. She can taste their agitation in the air.

Tien nods at her imperceptibly, directing her attention to the tall elf sitting in the high-back chair, leaning on his elbows casually with none of the deference or decorum the others afforded her.

“Where is Tikka?” He says, there’s no respect in his tone. The room holds its breath.

Leilah recognizes his voice from the night she took her sister away. This one’s always been a pain in her side. She stalks around the table in slow measured steps, her wand buzzes excitedly in her pocket.

“None of your business.” She says, low, commanding. He snorts.

“It’s in the interest of the coven to know.” He stresses his words, a clear challenge.  _So this is what you’re playing at then?_  Leilah smiles, it’s unsettling and she knows it, half of the people seated at the table look away. Tien smirks from her perch by the entrance.

The elf with his arms on the table holds his head high as Leilah steps behind him. He’s trying not to show his nervousness but the muscles in his hands are twitching uncontrollably, the veins in his neck throbbing, sticking out in the dim light. Leilah clasps a hand over his shoulder, leaning close to his ear. She can see gooseflesh rising where her hair brushes against his skin.

“No it isn’t.” She says and plunges her scorching screaming wand through the back of his neck.

He doesn’t have time to shout. Blood splatters across the table like water out of a fire hydrant, painting the faces of those who hadn’t the mind to turn away. Leilah drops the dead elf like discarded trash, kicking his body to the side.

“Clean up,” She orders. “You have fifteen minutes.”

She gets to work after they scatter, dipping her wand into the still hot blood and drawing runes along the walls. The concrete pulses with restrained energy. Her wand screeches, emitting blinding light and heat. Leilah’s hand burns where she’s holding it.

The air in the room drops low as blistering heat seeps out of the walls meandering around the sparse furniture, hovering over the dead elf and bloodied floor. She can almost see it curling around her in dark tendrils. Her wand casts an even brighter glow, a ring of white blue embracing the dull ashen coils like a python unlatching its maw. And then clamping it shut with a violent snap, inhaling the shadowy energy all at once. Leilah feels a rush of power not her own climb up her arm and almost drops her wand.  _Be still,_  says a rumbling in her head. She obeys and lets the foreign presence settle inside her wand. A tribute to her Lord.

Leilah’s still standing in the middle of the room, eyes closed, when the others return. They’ve packed up, faces clean now, bags in hand. Good.

They line up front of her as they were taught, backs ramrod straight. She tilts her head in approval then turns to lead them out, calling out one last command in her wake.

“Burn it down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the magnets go both ways :)))


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> interlude: a scene cut from the last chapter (putting it back for reasons).
> 
> please see end notes for possible trigger warnings.

There’s a wall of cushions blocking the entrance when Leilah finally comes home to the ivy covered apartment, and a message scrawled on a piece of fancy card stock in glittering ink sitting in the middle of the floor. _‘On the roof!’_ it says in loopy cursive with little hearts dotting the exclamation point and an arrow pointing upwards. She follows the note, scenting for her human and her sister on the way, and finds them in the rooftop garden surrounded by more cushions and makeshift curtains. Bed sheets hanging from the string lights crisscrossing the open air like a starry ceiling. Tikka’s lying on her back on a picnic blanket with her head in Leilah’s human’s lap, caught in a fit of giggles, and her human was busy trying to pull a brush through her sister’s wild hair.

“Keep still!” Her human whines, pinching the tip of Tikka’s nose. It only makes her laugh harder.

A strange tenderness bubbles up in Leilah’s chest, catching in her throat. She’d considered staying the night with her coven until they settled down, especially after the show from earlier. But the restlessness in her limbs, the magnets in her rib cage would not give her any peace until she left again. This time through the front doors, daring the others to speak as they watched her exit. A _power move,_ her human would call it _._ They needed to know that she won’t be leashed, not by them. Not by anyone.

Her human struggles to her feet with a squeak when she sees her, stumbling over the cushion cliffs and pillow mountains and finally spilling into Leilah’s arms.

“We made a pillow fort,” She says. “You missed out.”

“And cookies! We made cookies too.” Tikka calls from the floor, still sprawled on the picnic blanket.

“We made cookies.” Her human confirms, nodding seriously. Leilah follows her as she pulls back, sniffing at her hair.

“Are you drunk?”

Her human huffs indignantly. “I’m not _drunk,”_ She says. “Tikka’s drunk. I’m _buzzed,_ there’s a difference.”

“I’m not drunk either!” Tikka whisper shouts, flopping on to her stomach dramatically. “I don’t even know what drunk is!”

They’re drunk. Leilah spies an empty bottle half hidden under a furry pillow.

Her human demands her attention again, guiding Leilah’s face down to hers. “Your sister found the good stuff. I totally forgot I even had that.” Her fingers dance over Leilah’s collarbone, fiddling with the lapels of her jacket. Lips ghosting over Leilah’s cheek as she mumbles, pressing a sweet kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You should have come back earlier.”

And then she rips out of Leilah’s arms, laughing as she trips her way back through the cushions, eyes twinkling in the yellow glow of the string lights. Leilah’s heart quivers like hummingbird wings, heat settling low in her belly. She joins them on the checkered picnic blanket, letting her sister drag her into the mess of pillows. They haven’t done this since Tikka was small, since before Leilah passed the initiation and the Old Ones kept her busy with lessons (and punishments when she couldn’t keep up). This isn’t how the Inferni were supposed to conduct themselves. This isn’t how they were supposed to live.

Her sister smiles at her, a true smile, sweet like honey, for the first time in years and then smacks Leilah with an overstuffed pillow.

_Hang the Old Ones._

They stay on the roof until Tikka falls asleep. Leilah carries her sister back to her new bedroom, tucking her in like when they were children and her sister would inevitably nod off halfway through the stories she demanded Leilah tell her. Leilah kisses her sister goodnight and cleans up the scattered cushions on her way out.

Her daisy’s wrapped herself up in a gauzy bed sheet by the time she returns to the roof, bare shoulders peeking out of the flimsy fabric. Her clothes folded into a neat little stack by her feet. She crooks her finger at Leilah, patting the spot beside her and gods be damned Leilah obeys without a second thought. Her human climbs into her lap before she can even sit still, _impatient little thing,_ straddling Leilah’s thighs. And then she kisses her.

It’s different from her kisses. Her human kissed like the world was ending, pouring all of herself into that one sweet moment. There’s no blood, no selfish claiming, though her little blunt teeth scrape at Leilah’s bottom lip. Her human's kiss is all warmth like the rosy dawn. She pulls away too quickly for her liking, resting her forehead against Leilah’s own.

“I’ve wanted to do that all night.” Her human says, breath fanning across Leilah lips. The magnets in Leilah’s rib cage sing like an opera chorus. “I missed you while you were gone. It felt so empty here.” She takes one of Leilah’s hands and presses it to her heart. Heat seeps through the gossamer cloth, through Leilah’s fingertips, her veins, pooling right below her stomach. The air around them is charged with static. All of her senses are filled with a bone deep _wanting._

“You’re drunk.” Leilah whispers against her little daisy’s lips.

“I’m buzzed,” She says. “There’s a difference.” And she kisses her again. This time her human does bite, just hard enough to break the skin, soothing the sting with a flick of her tongue. “Tell me you don’t want me.” Her human says, pressing little kisses along Leilah’s jaw. “Tell me and I’ll stop.” She catches Leilah’s earlobe between her teeth, nipping at it and kissing her way up to the pointed tip. It’s gentle torture, feather light touches where she wants it to bruise and a promise on the edge of her human’s tongue.

“Leilah.” Her pretty human sighs into her ear, fingers trailing down her spine. “Tell me to stop or kiss me back.”

Leilah obeys.

She flips them over, pushing her pretty flower shop girl on to the checkered picnic blanket. Leilah kisses her back, tries to do it as sweetly as her human had but she can’t stop herself from sinking her teeth into that plush bottom lip, licking up her human’s blood. It’s intoxicating.

“Really?” Her human says when they break apart for air. “Why is it always blood with you guys?” She flips them over again before Leilah can answer. “And why do you get to be on top?” She swoops down, hair spilling around them in an inky curtain, and swallows Leilah’s gasps. Bathed in moon glow and the glimmer of the yellow string lights, her human looks nothing less than a goddess. Leilah can’t do anything but stare. She smooths her palms up her human’s bare thighs, pulling at the gauzy bed sheet, watching greedily as it slips down lower and lower.

Pretty daisy smacks her hand. _“Patience,”_ She singsongs, running her nose down Leilah’s throat. She kisses her way to the row of buttons on Leilah’s shirt and takes her time undoing them. One button, one kiss, all the way down to her navel, sucking a red mark on to the pale skin there. _Sweet torture._

Arms next. Her human sits up, pulling Leilah with her by her shirt collar. She eases her jacket off first, left arm a kiss on her shoulder, right arm a teasing bite through her shirt on the sensitive skin inside her elbow. _Sinful little thing, where did you learn this?_

“Almost even.” She whispers, stripping Leilah of her shirt, lighting fires where her fingers skip across Leilah’s skin. Her shoes go next, dumped carelessly next to the growing pile of clothes on the floor. And then her trousers, all while her little human tormented her with soft touches and lingering kisses.

“Now we’re even.” Her human says with devilish glee, pressing a kiss to Leilah’s thigh.

“No,” Leilah says. She rips the flimsy bed sheet out of her human’s hands, pinning her pretty flower shop girl into the bed of pillows. _“Now_ we’re even.” Attacking her human’s neck amidst her giggles, Leilah zeroes in on the red purple mark at the base of her throat, closing her teeth on it and biting hard. Sweet blood fills her mouth and her human’s pulse flutters under her tongue.

“Oh!” Her human breathes, falling limp against the pillows. Leilah continues, mapping her way down, leaving a trail of brilliant rubies on her human’s skin. She takes one pink tipped breast into her mouth, teasing like her human did to her. One kiss, one bite, marking her territory. Leilah takes her time, drawing out all the gasps and sighs she’s wanted to hear for so long. _Oh how she had wanted._

She can feel the magnets in her ribcage pulling her in. _Closer,_ she can hear them say. She couldn’t agree more.

Leilah presses her nose into the sweet spot between her human’s thighs and listens to the lovely kitten sounds that escape her pretty daisy’s throat. She tugs on Leilah’s hair, hard enough to hurt. _Oh yes!_ _That’s it!_ This is what she wanted, to see her human shed her gentleness.

“Stop teasing.” Her human pants, voice barely above a whisper and strained. _“Please.”_

“Try again,” Leilah says. Confusion swamps her human’s pretty face, pupils blown wide and unfocused, it very nearly makes Leilah forget her mission. And then her clever human pulls hard on Leilah’s hair, dragging her up and drowning her with a savage kiss. There’s blood on her lips when she leans back.

“Stop teasing,” She orders.

Leilah obeys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: dubious consent due to alcohol and magical tampering


	18. Chapter 18

_Bring me back something pretty._

A single cheery daisy sits in a glass on her bedside table.

“Reminded me of you.” Leilah told her between kisses when she remembered to ask for her gift, looking decidedly flustered when she’d said, “You’re such a sap, it’s so cute. How’re you so cute?” Alcohol loosened her tongue like nothing else, and the invisible pull she felt toward Leilah too. The pull that made her head spin when she was too far away but also when she was close enough to touch. Burning like a heady fever dream. She couldn’t think straight when Leilah was gone but not when she was right beside her either and it’s _terrifying._ Like she’s trapped in her own head.

The sun’s just starting to rise but she’s been awake for hours now.

Something was wrong with her.

There’s something she’s forgetting but every time she thinks she can almost grasp it’s shadow, the hooks in her brain dash it into a million, billion little pieces, ripping the half formed thought to bloody shreds. _And it hurts._

Kissing Leilah didn’t help like she thought it would, like they (the hooks) told her it would. But it did ease the ache in her chest that keeps telling her _closer, closer, closer._

Sleeping with her didn’t help either. Probably.

She can feel the arms around her waist grip tight as she shifts to avoid the morning sun from blinding her. A cold nose pressing into her neck. She tips her head backwards to see Leilah watching her with a terribly fond expression. It makes her feel the strangest wisp of guilt in the back of her mind.

“Good morning.” She whispers, leaning into Leilah’s shoulder. Her brain’s all foggy again and she can feel half of her heart drowning, choking. The other half flares to life, urging her to _forget for now,_ just for a little while. It doesn’t hurt as much when she listens, so she does, draping herself over the pretty elf girl in her bed. “Tell me something.” She says, twirling Leilah’s white blonde hair around her finger. “Have you ever kissed a girl before me?”

The foreign flush painting her elf girl’s cheeks sends a rush of satisfaction barreling through her. Never has she wielded such power over someone else, especially not an elf.

“Gonna take that as a no,” She sings. Leilah makes a disgruntled sound but there’s no heat to it, too distracted by her wandering hands.

“I did before.” Leilah says, flipping them over and pinning her arms above her head. “But not like with you. There is no one like you.” There’s a reverence in Leilah’s voice that makes her squirm.

“There are plenty of people like me, sugar.” _Pull back, pull back, pull back,_ half of her heart screams, the half that’s drowning, choking (dying). “I’m just a person.”

“Not to me.” Leilah mumbles against her skin and then tears into her throat again. It’s equal parts exhilarating and frightening. It shouldn’t be frightening, the other half of her heart says, the hooks in her brain tell her. _It’s not, it’s not._ She lets the thought settle at the very front of her mind so it can soothe the angry metal hooks. They like to rip into her when she thinks too much and she doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

She sneaks out to the kitchen balcony while her elf girl’s in the shower, leaning her head against the cool glass. Counted maybe 30 feet before the hooks in her limbs start digging in painfully again. A safe distance for her to think. This far away the ache in her ribs dulls to a low hum and the murky tide recedes enough for her heart to breathe. _Remember, remember, remember,_ she begs herself. _What was it that she forgot?_

The voice message light on her rarely used house phone flashes impatiently. Nobody ever called her house phone. _What in the world…?_ An overwhelming dread crawls up her spine. Her hands tremble as she reaches for the play button.

 _“Aga,”_ Her grandmother’s voice filters through the machine, tinny and cracked, like she’s talking through a narrow metal tube. _“I need you to come back. Come home so I don’t have to listen to a recording just to hear your voice. I promise to be sweet, even to that elf of yours. Please…”_ Nana’s sobs douse her like freezing water.

_Come home._

_Come back to me._

What did she mean? Nana lived across the country, they see each other for every birthday, every holiday. She called her grandmother every week like clockwork.

_That elf of yours._

What elf? Nana didn’t like elves, didn’t like that she worked for them sometimes, and she especially didn’t like…

Blue fills her vision.

Cloudy, dark blue-black water filling her lungs.

Bright, blinding blue-white hospital lights burning her eyes.

Steel blue, soft to the touch. _An anchor._

She remembers.

The hooks in brain screech in agony, grabbing at the thought, ready to cut it down, but she hangs on tight like her life depends on it because it does. _An anchor._ She needed an anchor.

She yanks the cordless phone out of the machine, fleeing to the balcony and locking the sliding glass door behind her. It’s an awful, dumb, stupid idea but it’s all she’s capable of in the moment, climbing on to the metal railing. Her hands shake as she dials the one number she knows by heart.

“Please pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick up.”

It rings once.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end is rough and tired like the speaker hasn’t slept for days. It’s the best thing she’s heard in her life. A sob of relief escapes her throat.

There’s a brief silence on the other end and then, _“Querida?”_ Cautious, hopeful, terrified.

“Kandomere!” She cries. It takes all of her concentration just to say his name, the pain in her head is excruciating now.

 _“Querida tell me where you are!”_ But she can’t, she can’t think or speak. Her limbs feel numb.

“Daisy?” Tikka’s leaning out of her window, rubbing the last traces of sleep from her eyes. “What are you doing?”

Her head feels like a lead weight under water.

“Daisy?”

_“Querida?”_

Too many voices all at once. She can’t breathe, it’s like the flower shop all over again. The balcony door slides open even though she knows she locked it. Marble hands cover her shoulders.

She can feel the familiar humid fog settle around her again. _No, no, no!_

“Daisy?” Leilah’s voice echoes in her ears. _Forget for now._

_Just for a little while._

_“Querida?”_

The metal railing digs into the backs of her thighs, cold against the blazing heat that’s prying at her anchor.

“Daisy get down from there!”

Tikka was right, she needed to get down.

She needed to get away.

She jumps.


	19. Chapter 19

The phone goes first, splintering on hard concrete with a deafening crack, like a burst of fireworks against velvet black sky. She expects to follow. A short drop, a quick explosion, and then quiet nothingness, and her head wouldn’t hurt anymore. But it doesn’t come. Arms like iron bands haul her up, up, up, back from the railing, back into the unbearably humid fog that’s already soaked through her lungs.

 _No!_  She wants to scream, scratching at the marble arms but they don’t let go.  _Drop me! Drop me!_  She pleads desperately and prays that whoever’s behind her hears it before the tide can roll in and drown her again.  _Just let me go._  A distant hiss that sounds like water reminds her that she never did learn how to swim and then she’s dragged under.

The hooks win, cutting her anchor clean out of her aching head, in one swift strike. Gone _._  Just like that.

Steel blue and gunmetal silver feathers across her vision. She grabs at it desperately but it floats out of her grasp and she sinks, sinks, sinks. Heavy fog and still water clog her head full and it  _hurts._

It feels worse than dying, she knows, she’s felt death before, shook hands with it briefly when she was fourteen and tangled in a seatbelt underwater and this is worse.  _Take me then, just make it stop._  There’s no point now that she has no anchor. The fight leaves her,  _whoosh_ , goodbye, just like that. Everything aches and the hooks in her brain finally take pity on her and loosen their grip. Someone’s stroking her hair, she thinks it might be nana until she hears soothing elvish nonsense in her ear. It sounds like a lullaby maybe, but she doesn’t know for sure. Long vowels and lilting words and something warm and tingling wash over her. Like magic.

There’s something blue and faded clinging to the very edge of the haze, fighting its way to her. She wants to reach out to it but an invisible force holds her in place.  _Close,_  a soft pressure on her eyelids.  _Listen,_  so she does. She listens to the pretty lullaby that she doesn’t understand. It sounds echoey, wavy almost, a chorus fading in and out of the murky water.

Her heart feels hollow but her head doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

And when she can speak again she’s compelled to confess every truth that she can call to mind. “ _Halmi_  called. My grandmother,” She says. The stroking stops but the marble hand stays in her hair, it’s oddly comforting. Not nana. A poor substitute but also better. “She left a message on the answering machine.”

“What did she say?” The voice is raspy, slow, hesitant, but  _oh!_  It makes the last of the pain in her head go away.

“I don’t remember.”

“Daisy!” Tikka tumbles through the sliding glass door. Her face is wet, tear tracks gleaming in the morning light. “Why did you do that?” She sounds so terribly sad and accusing too. But why?

“What did I do?” The hand in her hair slides down to her chin, turning her to face the calming voice.

“You tried to jump off the balcony little daisy. Why would you do that?” Leilah asks through clenched teeth. Her eyes are wild, glowing, it makes her look like a feral jungle cat.

“My head hurt. I wanted it to stop.” There was something else too, but she doesn’t remember what. It didn’t matter anymore.

“You idiot!” Tikka cries. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” She grabs her hands and pulls her up, burying her face into her hair. “You should have just told us.”

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t mean to scare them, not at all, she just wanted the pain to stop. Tikka pulls back to stare at her, looking very much like a heartbroken kitten. She reaches out to wipe her tears away even though most of them are in her hair now. “Don’t be sad. I’m fine now.”

“No, you’re not.” Tikka says firmly. She turns her accusing gaze on her sister, taking a deep breath to steel herself. “She’s not. You used too much magic.”

Leilah rises, brushing her palms on her pants. “It had to be done.”

“But-”

“It had to be done.” Her voice isn’t soothing anymore, it sends a shiver down her spine and Tikka’s too probably. The elf girl squeezes her hands hard. “She will recover.”

“Hey,” She had to interrupt before things got worse. Why did she always,  _always,_  cause so much trouble? “I’m fine, I promise. My head doesn’t even hurt anymore.” She forces a smile for Tikka. “Go wash your face and then we’ll make pancakes okay?”

Tikka sniffles and nods, bumping her sister’s shoulder with her fist on her way back inside. Leilah nudges her back. Some weird apology.  _Elves._

She drifts over to Leilah when they’re alone again, trailing her fingers up those marble arms. They’re red where she’d clawed at them in blind panic. She winces in sympathy, raising one arm to her lips and pressing a soft kiss to a particularly angry mark. “I really am sorry.” She breathes into Leilah’s skin.

She barely has time to blink before Leilah has her pinned to the door, gasping at the cold glass pressed against her back.

“Never do that again.” Leilah growls, her voice is pulled taut like an elastic stretched so tight it’s threatening to snap. “Don’t ever do that again. Promise me.” The intensity of her gaze is paralyzing. Sharp nails bite into her wrists.

“I won’t,” She says. She can’t look away. “I promise.”

Leilah heaves a shuddering sigh, dropping her forehead on to hers. The grip on her wrists turning soft. “Humans.” She says, before sweeping in to kiss her like a frantic traveller who just found a desert spring. Greedy.

They don’t break apart until Tikka slams the bathroom door loudly and even then Leilah doesn’t let her go, keeping their hands laced together as they finally leave the balcony.

She starts for the kitchen but Leilah pulls her in the other direction, to the little phone on the coffee table. Its voice message light is still blinking. Leilah rips the cord out of it and the wall, tearing it with a snap and tossing it in the trash can. She erases the messages too before dumping the whole thing into the garbage.

“Oh honestly! Was that really necessary? What if we want to order in?” It doesn’t bother her, not really, even if the faraway part of her brain insists it should. But she’d fuss anyway, like normal.  _Just make things go back to normal again._

“I will personally go pick up whatever it is that you want.” Leilah says, a hint of a smile on her lips. It’s working.

“Really? Even if I wanted something super disgusting?”

Leilah raises her brow, settling on an amused expression. Her single-minded elf had let go of her hand to destroy the phone and she’d used that time to put the sofa between them.  _Amateur._  “Like what?”

“I don’t know yet. Answer the question.” She backs into the kitchen as she speaks. Leilah stalks toward her.

“I would ask you to reconsider.” Step forward.

“Not a chance.” Step back.

She pounces just as Tikka wanders in. Collateral damage.  _Poor thing._  She laughs and laughs and laughs as the elf sisters pull themselves off the floor. This is good. This is normal.

She needed things to go back to normal.

“You guys are the worst.” Tikka pouts, combing through her tangled hair.

“Are not.” She sticks her tongue out like she’s five again.

“Don’t start.” Leilah groans, but the corners of her mouth twitch up. Tikka sticks her tongue out too just to spite her and it makes her laugh so hard her stomach aches. A pleasant ache, not like the pains from the before. The pain in her limbs, her head, her heart. They don’t hurt now, not when Leilah’s so close. Her head feels fuzzy but that’s okay. Anything was better than the skull splitting agony from before, even if everything that passes her ears sounds like it’s being filtered through water still.

Tikka pushes a bag of flour into her arms and parks herself into one of the high chairs at the kitchen island, doling out orders like a little tyrant. Leilah rolls her eyes, but she folds her sleeves up neatly anyway.

This was what she needed.

The fog in her head is warm and balmy, it doesn’t feel suffocating, not anymore. The hooks sit just under her skin, not pulling or tearing or ripping. She was stupid not to listen before, they just wanted what was best for her.

 _Forget about before,_  they tell her.

_All right._

_Okay._

_I will._

Just for a little while.

Leilah leaves after breakfast and the ache comes back the second she’s out the door. She doesn’t mention it though because Tikka still has a little crease between her brows and she can feel anxiety vibrating off of her. It’s only a twinge anyway, right at the front of her skull.

So she sets up camp in the middle of the living room floor where Tikka can see her, leaning back against the sofa with a cool damp towel over her eyes. Fatigue catches up to her then and she lets it guide her, maybe a nap will help ease the pain.

She’s just dozing off when Tikka’s call reaches her through the waterfall in her ears.

“Daisy!” Urgent. Distressed. She lifts the towel off her face and struggles to her feet. Tikka’s already beside her, dragging her to the front door, bruising her arms with an iron grip.

“We have to go  _now!”_

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Tikka’s hands are shaking.

“MTF.”

She’s still trying to work out what’s happening when Tikka pulls her back. The door crashes open, slamming into the wall where she’d just been standing. Her picture frames clatter to the ground. Broken glass scuttles across the floor like frightened ants.

“Hands where we can see them!” Someone bellows. It should be loud but it isn’t, she can barely hear anything over the rush of water in her ears. All she can focus on are glass shards glittering like stars and the ruined photo of her and nana at her convocation. Her face is torn up, sliced in half right down the middle.

Her head is pounding.

She drops to her knees right into the glittering glass, cradling her aching skull. Tikka’s screaming but she doesn’t hear the words. Everything around her moves in a blur. She sees two Tikkas, four lamps on the table, and  _blue, blue, blue._  Someone wraps their arms around her shoulders.

“Querida?” Gentle hands on her face. Warm. The voice is familiar even through the deafening maelstrom. Steel blue and gunmetal silver.

Her anchor.

“You’re here.” She feels herself say the words, knows she’s moving her mouth, but she can’t hear anything. The hooks in her head are tearing her brain to shreds.

_It hurts._

Clapping her hands over her ears doesn’t shut out the roaring currents.  _Get out! Get out! Get out!_  There’s something wet on her fingers.

She looks down at her hands and all she sees is red.


	20. Chapter 20

Kandomere’s pretty flower shop girl tries to read his palm once.

They were tucked up on the sofa watching a terrible movie of her choice when she’d asked, “Aren’t you even a little teeny tiny bit superstitious?”

“No.” Kandomere remembers saying.

“I am.” She told him.

He remembers letting her trace his palm with her fingertips. It was distracting but he hadn’t really been paying attention to the movie anyway. He remembers her chattering about how her grandmother could read palms, how her readings were never wrong _(with a margin of error of course (“Then how is she never wrong?” “Stop interrupting my story!”))._ He remembers her breath hitching in time with a stuttering stroke.

“What is it?” He’d asked.

“The lines are broken.” She’d lifted his hand to show him.

He doesn’t remember telling her he’d done it to himself, scrubbing off his own skin again and again and again until it couldn’t heal anymore, until he couldn’t see the _stains_ anymore.

Kandomere doesn’t remember telling her because he never did.

..

Human blood all smells the same. Salted iron and summer sweet. Quite pleasant actually, most elves would agree, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it. Not _after._

(Drip. Drip. Drip.

_Help me!_

Drip. Drip.

_Please._

Dry.)

Kandomere smells it before he sees it. It claws it's way down his throat, into his lungs. He can feel it on his skin, cold and grainy, sliding across his fingers like lazy slugs.

He can’t move.

The door is right in front of him, but his muscles are locked in place. His girl’s voice, cracked and breathless over the phone, echoes in his ears but the words are different.

_(Please, please for the love of god!_

Drip, drip, dry.)

And then Montehugh _(bless him)_ barrels past him like a great hulking grizzly, splintering the wooden door with a thunderous slam.

“Hands where we can see them!”

Curse broken.

Kandomere doesn’t even bother with his gun, rushing to his human’s side like a flash of lightning, leaving Montehugh to deal with the scratching, spitting hellcat that looks like Leilah but isn’t.

She’s kneeling in a pile of broken glass, his little human, fingers tangled in her hair.

“Querida?” He gathers her to his chest and braces himself before looking into her eyes. They’re dark, pupils wide enough to swallow her irises whole but he can still see them, like dusky midnight.

She’s back. Kandomere lets himself choke out a sigh of relief but the breath he takes in is like a punch to the gut.

_Salted iron and summer sweet._

“You’re here.” Her voice is barely above a whisper and her brows draw together even though he can hear her almost-but-not-quite-giddiness. She pulls away from him to look down at her hands and that’s when he sees it.

Ruby red staining her palms.

_Drip._

Trickling down her neck.

_Drip._

Drenching her hair.

_Drip._

Kandomere looks at his own hands.

Her blood’s there too.

..

She’d asked if she could list him as her emergency contact after he saved her from the rickety stepladder for the second time because _who wouldn’t want a literal hero to be their emergency contact Mr. Special Agent?_

Except he isn’t a hero.

He wasn’t twenty years ago and he certainly isn’t now. There’s a freezing numbness inside Kandomere’s chest. A scorching cold nothingness where he thinks his heart should be beating. Is this how she felt all those times she sat here waiting for him to be patched up? The stiff plastic of the waiting room chair digs into his back. Kandomere wants to scream.

The chief had been waiting for them in the hospital parking lot with a nod and a fatherly hand on his shoulder, turning to a still screeching not-Leilah and asking _“don’t you want to help you friend?”_ And that’s when he remembers the water cooler rumours about their chief secretly being a Bright because not-Leilah crumples into a heap in Montehugh’s arms and tells them _everything._

 _“A command to obey,”_ she’d said. Kandomere doesn’t know the rest. Hospital staff come to rush his girl inside and all he can do is follow like a withered leaf chasing the wind.

One of the nurses kicks him out of the operating room with a grim look so he stands right by the doors like a rooted stump until the chief grips his shoulder again (like abuelo used to do) and says _“go clean up son.”_

Kandomere locks himself in the second floor bathroom to wash his hands. Wash, dry, sterilize, repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

The _scent_ sticks.

..

Montehugh comes back with coffee and bagels but neither of them eat. Kandomere vaguely registers his partner saying something about sisters.

He takes a sip of coffee.

It tastes like human blood.


	21. Chapter 21

Two things happen at once to disrupt Kandomere’s vigil outside the operating room: Montehugh clearing his throat like he always does before doing something that makes him uncomfortable, and a warm pressure settling itself on his shoulder.

“Easy, son.” The chief’s voice floats over his head, full of gravel, as Kandomere tries to control the full body flinch that ripples through him. He almost misses the other set of footsteps behind them.

“Can I see her now?” Leilah’s sister hasn’t been restrained like he thought she would be. There are no metal cuffs on her wrists, not even a uniformed officer shadowing her. The witch is hunched in on herself like Leilah would never be but their eyes are the same. Staring at him from a face that looks eerily similar to but isn’t the one he wants to rip apart with his bare hands. Kandomere surges up from his seat and is pulled back immediately.

“Sorry Boss,” Montehugh mumbles.

He tries again, knocking down the row of chairs along the wall as he bucks against his partner’s grip. Montehugh doesn’t let up, fingers digging into his arms, the betrayal stings. “Let me go!” Kandomere growls, baring all his teeth. He can see the little elf witch cower behind his chief.

“Enough!”

Kandomere finds himself face to face with the man who was supposed to be his superior. Wrinkles line his eyes the way they’re never supposed to line the face of an elf. “This is why I took you off the case.” He hisses like an old dragon valiantly trying to keep his temper in check. “Use your head, boy!”

Kandomere snarls at him, he snarls back.

“Don’t think I don’t understand, I do.” The chief says lowly so only he can hear, and then louder, “But you can’t help her right now and she _can.”_

“I can!” Leilah’s sister nods, hair bouncing wildly around her face. “I can help her! I can fix it!” She sounds as if she’s going to cry.

The red light above the door flashes twice and the nurse from before exits the operating room. “We’re ready for you.” She says. Leilah’s sister doesn’t spare him a second glance before scurrying inside. The chief follows carrying a metal case that Kandomere only now notices. A faint blue light seeps out around the hinges.

He breaks free of Montehugh’s hold just as the doors close again, slamming into it hard with his side.

“Boss, man…” Montehugh starts and stops.

They’re alone in the corridor now.

Neither of them say a word.

..

“Why do you hate magic so much?” Kandomere’s pretty flower shop girl asks him once.

“Because no one should be able to do what magic lets them do.” He told her.

“They’re not all bad things,” She’d said, pinching his chin with shiny manicured nails. “If it was like a life or death situation or something I’d want some magical higher power to swoop in and save the day.”

_“And it’ll never come to that as long as I have a say.”_

_“Well aren’t you just a regular old super hero?”_

..

The light that filters out under the operating room doors is also blue.

He stares at it until it blurs his vision.

..

It’s not a life or death situation (maybe), they find out that much when the chief sends Montehugh a text that reads only, _“OK”._ Montehugh’s convinced it’s good news because, _chief wouldn’t pull dumb shit like this if it wasn’t._ It doesn’t help though, if anything it makes Kandomere clench his fists all the tighter, fingers trembling from strain.

The light above the operating room doors finally turns off after they lose count of the hours. Kandomere pushes past the doctors and nurses marching out in a single file line, not even stopping to hear what the lead surgeon had to say. He can feel his heart climbing up his throat.

“Her eardrums were ruptured…” He hears the surgeon telling Montehugh. Ruptured eardrums, that’s where the blood had come from, not a slit jugular. _None of that now._ His knees almost buckle in relief.

The sound of metal scraping metal rips out of the operating room followed by a ragged _“get away from me!”_ Kandomere enters just in time to see his pretty flower shop girl backing into a corner, holding a scalpel in her shaking hands.

“Daisy, she didn’t mean it she really didn’t! Please don’t be mad!”

“Tikka back away, she can’t hear you.”

“But-“

The silver scalpel gleams under the bright spot lights as his human raises it level to her temple. “There’s something wrong with me Tikka,” She sobs. “There’s something in my head I have to get it out.”

_No._

Kandomere launches himself at her, knocking the scalpel out her hand. She doesn’t struggle like he expects, curling into his chest and sobbing instead. “ _There’s something wrong with me,”_ is all she says.

“Nothing’s wrong with you querida. Everything will be fine.” He chokes on his lie. Turning to the witch he seethes, “You said you could fix her!”

“I…”

“Why can’t I hear you?” Kandomere’s human pulls on his lapels, guiding his attention back to her. “You’re talking but I can’t hear you.”

“Querida-“

“But I can hear _her.”_ Her words make his skin crawl.

Kandomere watches as his human presses shaking hands over her ears.

..

_“She’s mad at us."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why is it so hard to write Kandomere chapters :c


	22. Chapter 22

It’s exactly 2’o clock P.M. when Leilah’s eardrums rupture.

She’s counting the seconds somewhere in the back of her mind,  _tick tock tick tock tick tock,_  Daisy Flower’s phantom hands dance across her rib cage tug, tug, tugging in time with the clock. Leilah dangles her feet over the side of her new leather chair, heels clicking as she kicks at the wall. She leans back lethargically, supervising the room from the head of the new table. One more hour, she thinks to herself, she’ll give them one more hour of her full  _(tick)_ undivided  _(tock)_  attention  _(tick)._

Tien hisses something sharp at Serafin where they circle another shiny leather chair like sharks on the other side of the table but Leilah pays them no mind. She’s in a good mood, little daisy’s honeyed  _I’ll see you later then_  whistling like birdsong in her ears.

_“Come home soon okay?”_

Very soon, Leilah thinks. Very, very soon.

They’ve settled in record time, her coven, efficient as ever and well behaved today. No one asks about Tikka or the summer sweet  _(human)_  scent that Leilah now wears as her own.

One more hour, she thinks, and then she can’t think at all.

There’s blood coming out of her ears, Leilah smells it before she feels it, lava-hot rivers carving spiralling paths down each side of her neck. It doesn’t hurt,  _she_ doesn’t hurt, she knows the skin is already knitting itself together again. But there’s a skull splitting ache in her head that’s not her own and her chest feels terrifyingly hollow.

The hall falls still,  _silent,_  Leilah knows even though she can’t hear it. Her coven holds their breaths as one collective being, watches her as one collective being. They stare, they wait. But Leilah doesn’t care, not right now, not this second, not when it feels like her head’s been dashed atop a marble carving block. Not when it feels like her heart’s just been ripped out of her chest.

Something urgent grips at Leilah’s throat, cold and metallic and horrendously foreign. She fumbles for the wand in her pocket. It’s shrieking she can feel it.

And that’s all she can feel, the bone quaking shrieks rattling up her arm, the bullet-lead eyes pinning her to her chair from every corner of the room. The airless nothing between her lungs where her little human should be sitting pretty waiting for her to come home.

 _Daisy,_  she calls, grappling for the hooks that should be on the other end of her wand.  _Daisy,_  she chants,  _daisy, daisy, daisy._

She snags something briefly and pulls, pulls, pulls.

Whatever’s on the other side pulls harder.

Leilah screams.

..

It’s fear, that slick eerie cold in the pit of her stomach, in her throat, in her every vein.

It’s fear and it makes Leilah angry.

Daisy’s apartment is swarming with rats. The whole street is _infested_ from intersection to with ugly, suit-clad MTF agents, jagged and angular against the pale buildings and creeping vines. Leilah scans the windows (apartment windows, car windows, open doors, anything, anything, _anything)_ from a shadowed rooftop one alley over, searching for glossy curls and white blonde hair.

_They’re gone, they’re gone, they’re gone._

The rats took them, her daisy, her Tikka. The rats took them, the rats made her _fear._

 _Daisy, daisy, daisy._ She hasn’t stopped screaming in her head since the hooks snapped, but little daisy doesn’t answer.

_Tikka, Tikka, Tikka, little sister where are you?_

_My Lord,_ she cries, but he’s silent too.

..

This is all _his_ fault.

_Of course it is._

Of course, of course, of course.

Leilah’s alone now. She’s been alone for hours, paralyzed by The Cold. (She won’t call it fear. Leilah fears nothing. Not. A. Thing.)

She’s not afraid, no. Leilah is angry.

Her Lord must be punishing her for even thinking of fear, she knows he must be. _Prove yourself Leilah,_ she thinks, _prove yourself worthy._

Heat gathers all around her like a gaping maw, sinking into her with razor wire teeth. Leilah presses her wand (the wild shrieking _(still shrieking (always shrieking))_ thing) to her own temple, pushing hard enough to break the skin. Boiling magic rushes into her head, sweeping up the broken hooks, they can’t be fixed, not this very second, but she _will_ fix them. She’ll push them in deep when she sees her daisy next.

Her ears are bleeding again, drip, drip, dripping on to the grey concrete. _Where are you hmm?_

The broken hooks tumble violently, catching at her seething magic with greedy hands. Leilah pushes them out, out, out. _Do you jobs you useless things!_ And they do, brittle talons managing to snare some nervous little creature.

Magic, not her own but achingly familiar. Magic, like hers but not really.

Tikka’s.

Tikka’s magic is a cool evening breeze, soothing, healing. It makes the hollow in Leilah’s ribcage stutter.

_Who are you healing? Who has been hurt?_

Tikka’s magic flutters restlessly under the fractured hooks, _no time, no time, no time to spare,_ Leilah makes them release it immediately. _Go, go heal. Go now!_

She chases after it, holding her breath until they stop, and when Leilah breathes again the air is summer sweet. Summer sweet and a whiff of salty burning iron, like human blood.

Her daisy is bleeding.

Leilah’s human is there, folded in on herself, gleaming rubies drying dull on her skin, Tikka’s pale blue-white magic combing gently through her hair. She looks like a corpse, Leilah forgets to breathe again.

 _Daisy?_ Even in her own head her voice cracks.

The little human shape stirs.

_Oh blessed be, My Lord! Thank you, thank you, thank you!_

She breathes.

Be soft, Leilah tells herself, she needs you to be soft. But she can’t control the smoldering, churning tidal wave of magic rolling off of her. It washes over her little human and drowns, drowns, _drowns her._

 _Daisy come to me,_ she commands.

Leilah’s human doesn’t move an inch, eyes dark, wide, fearful.

_Fearful._

She’s afraid.

Leilah’s human looks at her and weeps.

..

This is all _his_ fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like someone needs to die soon for all of this tension to pay off? idk idk idk


End file.
